Evaluation of hydrogen behavior in sodium for sodium-water reaction detection of sodium-cooled fast reactor

Yamamoto, Tomohiko  ; Kato, Atsushi; Hayakawa, Masato; Shimoyama, Kazuhito ; Ara, Kuniaki ; Hatakeyama, Nozomu*; Yamauchi, Kanau*; Eda, Yuhei*; Yui, Masahiro*

In the secondary cooling system of sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), a rapid detection of hydrogen explosion due to sodium-water reaction by water leakage from heat exchanger tube is steam generator (SG) is important in terms of safety and property protection. For the hydrogen detection, Ni-membrane hydrogen detectors using atomic transmission phenomenon were used in Japanese proto-type sodium-cooled fast reactor "Monju". However, during the plant operation, many alarms of water leakage were occurred without sodium-water reaction in relation to temperature up and down. The authors focus on the difference in composition of hydrogen and the difference between the background hydrogen under normal operation and the hydrogen generated by the sodium-water reaction and theoretically estimate the hydrogen behavior in liquid sodium by using ultra-accelerated quantum chemical molecular dynamics (UA-QCMD). As the results of theoretical estimation, dissolved H or NaH, rather than H, is the predominant form of the background hydrogen in liquid sodium, and hydrogen produced in large amounts by sodium-water reaction can exist stably as fine bubbles with a NaH layer on their surface. Currently, the authors study the new hydrogen detector system focusing on the difference between the background hydrogen (dissolved H) and the hydrogen by sodium-water reaction (fine bubbles H). This paper describes the comparison between the theoretical estimation and experimental results based on hydrogen form in sodium.