Investigation on flow field around a slit of Upper Internal Structure (UIS) in a highly compact vessel of a sodium cooled fast reactor

Kamide, Hideki ; Aizawa, Kosuke ; Oshima, Jun*; Nakayama, Okatsu*; Kasahara, Naoto

Development of advanced loop type sodium cooled fast reactor is under going. An upper internal structure (UIS) has a radial slit to reduce the reactor vessel diameter. This UIS slit allows a high velocity from the core fuel subassemblies and influences the gas entrainment in the reactor vessel and also the delayed neutron precursor sampling for a failed fuel detection and location system. Then flow visualization and velocity measurements were carried out in an 1/10 scale water test model. The velocity measurement using particle image velocimetry showed that velocity in the slit region was accelerated at the heights of the UIS horizontal plates and kept higher value at the middle height of the upper plenum. Numerical simulation using a commercial CFD code was also carried out for this complex geometry of UIS to know adequate simulation method. The comparisons of velocity profiles in the UIS between the experiment and analysis showed good agreements.