Thermal-Hydraulic investigation on severaI fast reactor design concepts

Ohshima, Hiroyuki; Sakai, Takaaki; not registered; Yamaguchi, Akira; Nishi, Yoshihisa*; Ueda, Nobuyuki*; not registered

The feasibility study (Phase l) is being carried out at JNC to build up new design concepts of practical fast reactors (FRs) from the viewpoint of economy, safety, effective use of resources, reduction of environmental burden and non-proliferation. This report describes the results of the investigation, related to decay heat removal, core/fuel-assembly thermal-hydraulics and thermal-hydraulic correlations, that was performed in fiscal l999 as a part of the feasibility study. ln the study of the decay heat removal, the effects of several design parameters on the performance of the reactor vessel auxiliary cooling system (RVACS) in a middle-scale sodium-cooled FR were clarified by using a plant dynamic analysis code. The upper limit of RVACS performance was preliminarily estimated at approximately 0.50.6 MWe. Numerical methods for the plant dynamic analysis of gas-and heavy-metal-cooled FRs were also developed. They were applied to the preliminary calculations of the transition from scram to natural circulation and the transient characteristics in tentative plant design concepts were clarified. ln addition, a dimensionless number indicating natural circulation performance was deduced for the comparison of several plant design concepts. With respect to the core/fuel-assembly thermal-hydraulics, numerical analysis methods were improved for the pin-type fuel assembly of gas-and heavy-metal-cooled FRs, the coated-particle- type fuel assembly of helium-gas-cooled FR, and the ductless core of sodium-and heavy-metal-cooled FRs. As preliminary evaluations, thermal-hydraulics in the heavy-metal-cooled FR fuel assembly was compared with sodium-cooled one and thermal-hydraulic analyses of carbon-dioxide- and helium-gas-cooled FR fuel assemblies were performed. The analysis for the fuel assembly with inside duct of sodium-cooled FR was also carried out. The correlations of pressure loss and heat transfer coefficient were investigated for the thermal-hydraulic ...