Water experiments on thermal striping in reactor vessel of advanced sodium-cooled fast reactor; Influence of flow collector of backup CR guide tube

Kobayashi, Jun ; Ezure, Toshiki ; Tanaka, Masaaki  ; Kamide, Hideki 

JAEA has been conducting a design study for an advanced large-scale sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR). Hot sodium from the fuel subassembly can mix with the cold sodium from the control rod (CR) channel at the bottom of Upper Internal Structure (UIS). Temperature fluctuation due to the fluid mixing at the core outlet may cause high cycle thermal fatigue at the bottom of UIS. JAEA had performed a water experiment to examine countermeasures for the significant temperature fluctuation generated at the bottom of SFRs UIS. Meanwhile, a self-actuated shutdown system (SASS) is equipped in a backup control rod (BCR) channel to ensure reactor shutdown. The BCR guide tubes have a flow guide structure "flow-collector" to provide reliable operation of SASS. Flow-collector may affect the thermal mixing behavior at the bottom of the UIS. This study has investigated the influence of the flow- collector on characteristics of the temperature fluctuation around the BCR channels.