Proposal of evaluation method of graphite incombustibility

Hamamoto, Shimpei  ; Ohashi, Hirofumi ; Iigaki, Kazuhiko ; Shimazaki, Yosuke ; Ono, Masato ; Shimizu, Atsushi ; Ishitsuka, Etsuo   

Since the HTGR has a large amount of graphite material in the core, it is necessary to assume an accident in which the reactor pressure boundary is damaged and air flows into the core. It is important to state that at the time of this accident, graphite does not burn and the accident does not develop due to the heat of oxidation reaction. Therefore, in this study, in order to evaluate the combustibility of graphite materials, we propose a method to compare the calorific value and heat removal amount of the material. When calculating the calorific value, the structural material of HTTR, a high-temperature gas reactor in Japan, was used as a reference. The amount of air in contact with the structural material is a value determined from the chimney effect. The amount of heat release is the sum of convection and radiation. As a result of comparing the heat generation amount with the heat removal amount, it was shown that the heat release amount was always larger than the heat generation amount. This result shows that the graphite material does not depend on the state at the time of the air inflow accident, the temperature decreases and does not burn. It is important to clearly explain the non-flammability of graphite materials when deciding how to deal with severe accidents in HTGRs. This quantitative evaluation method based on a simple theory is considered useful.