Effect of fuel particle size on consequences of criticality accidents in water-moderated solid fuel particle dispersion system

固体燃料粒子が分散している水減速系において燃料粒子サイズが臨界事故の規模にあたえる影響

福田 航大 ; 山根 祐一  

Fukuda, Kodai; Yamane, Yuichi

粒子状の固体燃料デブリが水中に分散した場合のデブリ粒子径に着目し、粒子径が核分裂数や出力推移といった臨界挙動に与える影響を明らかにすることを目的とした動特性解析を行った。その結果、燃料から水への熱伝達量が大きい条件下で、燃料粒子径を1桁小さくすると核分裂の回数が10倍になること等が明らかとなった。この結果より、燃料粒子径を適切に設定しなければ、核分裂数が過大又は過少評価される可能性が示唆された。

This study aims to clarify the effect of fuel particle radius on the criticality transient behavior and the total number of fissions in water-moderated solid fuel dispersion systems. Neutronics/thermal hydraulics-coupled kinetics analysis was performed in a hypothetical fuel debris system, where small fuel particles aggregate in water and become supercritical. Results showed that the number of fissions is 10 times larger when the fuel particle radius is reduced by one order of magnitude under conditions where heat transfer, i.e. from fuel to water, is emphasized. Moreover, there is a possibility that lower reactivity could give a larger number of fissions when the fuel particle size is very small. In addition, the number of fissions may be overestimated or underestimated to an unexpected extent unless appropriate fuel particle size is set on the analysis.