Sodium experiments on natural circulation decay heat removal and 3D simulation of plenum thermal hydraulics

Kamide, Hideki ; Ono, Ayako ; Kimura, Nobuyuki; Endo, Junji*; Watanabe, Osamu*

Natural circulation decay heat removal is one of the significant issues for fast reactor safety, especially in long term station blackout events. Several sodium experiments were carried out using a 7-subassmbly core model for core thermal hydraulics under natural circulation conditions and for onset transients of natural circulation in a decay heat removal system (DHRS) including natural draft. Significant heat removal via inter-wrapper flow was confirmed in the experiments. Solidification of sodium in an air cooler is one of key issues in loss of heat sink events. Natural circulation characteristics under long-term decay heat removal were also obtained. Multi-dimensional phenomena, e.g., thermal stratification and bypass flow in plenums and/or heat exchangers, may influence the natural circulation. Thus, 3D simulation method was developed for entire region in the primary loop. Comparison of temperature distributions in a DHRS heat exchanger between experiment and analysis was done.