Establishment of floating support technology applied to high-temperature components and piping in HTTR

Shinohara, Masanori ; Inaba, Yoshitomo  ; Hamamoto, Shimpei  ; Fujimoto, Nozomu

In the primary cooling system of the High Temperature engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) with an outlet coolant temperature of 950C, high-temperature components and piping such as an intermediate heat exchanger and coaxial double piping reach very high temperature, and large and complex thermal displacements arise in them. In order not only to absorb the thermal displacements but also to withstand earthquakes, the HTTR has adopted a new three-dimensional floating support system. In the limited space of the containment vessel, the support system can support the components' and piping's own weights and follow the thermal displacements and have seismic capacity. On the other hand, the adoption of the support system was unprecedented in nuclear plants. Thus, the effectiveness of the support system was demonstrated through the HTTR operation. In this paper, by using the HTTR operation data, the thermal displacement behavior of the high-temperature components and piping is investigated, and the behavior and characteristics are simulated numerically. In addition, the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake on the HTTR is confirmed. As a result, the effectiveness of the three-dimensional floating support system adopted by the HTTR is verified.