Study of hydraulic behavior for reactor upper plenum in sodium-cooled fast reactor; Verification analysis of water experiment and applicability of vortex prediction method

Fujii, Tadashi; Chikazawa, Yoshitaka; Konomura, Mamoru; Kamide, Hideki; Kimura, Nobuyuki; Nakayama, Okatsu; Ohshima, Hiroyuki; Narita, Hitoshi*; Fujimata, Kazuhiro*; Itooka, Satoshi*

JAEA-Research 2006-017, 113 Pages, 2006/03

JAEA-Research-2006-017.pdf:14.98MB

A conceptual design study of the sodium-cooled fast reactor is in progress in the Feasibility Study on Commercialized Fast Reactor Cycle Systems. Reduced scale water experiments are being performed in order to clarify the flow pattern in the upper plenum of the reactor which has higher velocity condition than the past design. In this report, the hydraulic analyses of the water experiments using the general-purpose thermal hydraulic analysis program were executed; and the applicability to evaluation of flow pattern and vortex cavitations for the designed reactor was examined. (1) Steady-state analyses under the Froude number similar condition were carried out for the 1/10th reduced scale plenum experiments. Analyses results reproduced the characteristic flow patterns in the upper plenum, such as gushed flow from the inside of the upper internal structure to reactor vessel wall and the jet flow from the slit of the upper internal structure. Further, it was confirmed that the calculated flow pattern of a designed reactor system agreed with that of the water experiment qualitatively. Moreover, the influence which setting of numerical solution and boundary condition etc. in analyzing causes to flow pattern in the plenum became clear. (2) The distribution of the vortices under the dipped plate region in the 1/10th plenum model was evaluated using the prediction method of a submerged vortex which is based on the stretching vortex theory. In case of the same velocity condition as the reactor, it identified the two vortices which were sucked into the hot leg piping from the cold leg piping wall as the submerged vortex cavitations. From this analysis result, it confirmed that the submerged vortex cavitations, which may occur in the reactor upper plenum steadily, could be identified using this prediction method.