Safety margins after failure of fuel cladding during protected loss-of-heat-sink accidents in a sodium-cooled fast reactor

Fukano, Yoshitaka; Nishimura, Masahiro; Yamada, Fumiaki

Proceedings of 16th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-16) (USB Flash Drive), p.5687 - 5698, 2015/08

The following safety criteria for anticipated operational occurrences are commonly and uniformly employed for all the DBAs in the Japanese prototype sodium-cooled fast reactor to prevent fuel melting and cladding failure:(a) Maximum fuel temperature shall be below the melting point,(b) Maximum cladding temperature shall be below 830C, and (c) Maximum coolant temperature shall be below the boiling point. Cladding failure is allowed, on the contrary to that, in beyond DBAs (BDBAs) or severe accidents (SAs), whereas the core cooling capability is also needed to be secured as in DBAs. No fuel melting enables this by keeping the core in a coolable geometry, and is thus conservatively required even under such a condition. Protected loss-of-heat-sink (PLOHS) events are identified as one of the most dominant sequences. Safety margins for significant core damage in PLOHS events were therefore studied in this paper assuming fuel cladding failure. The following three possible mechanisms leading to degradation of the core were then identified to be scrutinized by a thorough and state-of-the-art review of open papers on the phenomena anticipated to occur under cladding failure conditions:(1) Fuel melting due to fuel-sodium reaction product (FSRP) formation, (2) Thermal transient due to FP gas impingement from adjacent failed fuel pins, and (3) Mechanical load due to the same FP gas impingement. It was clarified through simulation analyses on each phenomenon mentioned above using the FUCA code that there was no significant core damage at the coolant temperatures of up to 950C. It was therefore concluded that large safety margins are provided during PLOHS events even in failure of fuel cladding.

Analysis for progression of accident at Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Station with THALES2 code

Matsumoto, Toshinori; Ishikawa, Jun; Maruyama, Yu

Proceedings of 16th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-16) (USB Flash Drive), p.4033 - 4043, 2015/08

New AESJ thermal-hydraulics roadmap for LWR safety improvement and development after Fukushima accident

Nakamura, Hideo; Arai, Kenji*; Oikawa, Hirohide*; Fujii, Tadashi*; Umezawa, Shigemitsu*; Abe, Yutaka*; Sugimoto, Jun*; Koshizuka, Seiichi*; Yamaguchi, Akira*

Proceedings of 16th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-16) (USB Flash Drive), p.5353 - 5366, 2015/08

EBR-II passive safety demonstration tests benchmark analyses; Phase 2

Briggs, L.*; Monti, S.*; Hu, W.*; Sui, D.*; Su, G. H.*; Maas, L.*; Vezzoni, B.*; Partha Sarathy, U.*; Del Nevo, A.*; Petruzzi, A.*; et al.

Proceedings of 16th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-16) (USB Flash Drive), p.3030 - 3043, 2015/08

The International Atomic Energy Agency Coordinated Research Project, "Benchmark Analyses of an EBR-II Shutdown Heat Removal Test" is in the third year of its four-year term. Nineteen participants representing eleven countries have simulated two of the most severe transients performed during the Shutdown Heat Removal Tests program conducted at Argonne's Experimental Breeder Reactor II. Benchmark specifications were created for these two transients, enabling project participants to develop computer models of the core and primary heat transport system, and simulate both transients. In phase 1 of the project, blind simulations were performed and then evaluated against recorded data. During phase 2, participants have refined their models to address areas where the phase 1 simulations did not predict as well as desired the experimental data. This paper describes the progress that has been made to date in phase 2 in improving on the earlier simulations and presents the direction of planned work for the remainder of the project.

Progress of thermal hydraulic evaluation methods and experimental studies on a sodium-cooled fast reactor and its safety

Kamide, Hideki; Ohshima, Hiroyuki; Sakai, Takaaki; Tanaka, Masaaki

Proceedings of 16th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-16) (USB Flash Drive), p.8141 - 8155, 2015/08

In this paper, the authors focus on four kinds of thermal-hydraulic issues associated with the SDC, i.e. fuel assembly thermal-hydraulics, natural circulation decay heat removal, thermal striping phenomena, and core disruptive accidents, and provide a description of their evaluation method developments including verification and validation and necessary experimental studies for the Japan Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (JSFR). These evaluation methods are planned to be eventually integrated into a comprehensive numerical simulation system that can be applied to all phenomena envisioned in SFR systems and that can be expected to become an effective tool for the development of human resource and the handing down of knowledge/technologies.

Study on flow boiling heat transfer in horizontal-rectangular-narrow-flat channels

Koizumi, Yasuo; Ohira, Koji*

Proceedings of 16th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-16) (USB Flash Drive), 14 Pages, 2015/08

In this study, to examine the channel narrowing effect on the two-phase flow boiling heat transfer, single-phase flow and flow boiling heat transfer experiments were performed for a thin rectangular channel of the width W = 3 mm and the height = 1.25 mm 0.163 mm. When the hydraulic diameter became smaller than 1.06 mm, for the single-phase flow conditions, the heat transfer coefficient became smaller than that for a conventional size channel. In the flow boiling, churn flow appeared even at a low heat flux and a flow pattern was mainly the churn flow or/and the annular flow. The critical heat flux was higher than the value of Kutateladze correlation for the pool boiling. However, when the flow channel height became extremely narrow, measured critical heat flux became lower than the Kutateladze value. based on these results, the modification method to incorporate the channel narrowing effect into the heat transfer coefficient correlation was proposed.

Numerical investigation of self-wastage phenomena in steam generator of sodium-cooled fast reactor

Jang, S.*; Takata, Takashi; Yamaguchi, Akira*; Uchibori, Akihiro; Kurihara, Akikazu; Ohshima, Hiroyuki

Proceedings of 16th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-16) (USB Flash Drive), p.4275 - 4288, 2015/08

Numerical analysis of the self-wastage phenomenon was carried out using a multi-dimensional computational code called SERAPHIM. Several steps of numerical analysis were constructed to reproduce transient self-wastage phenomenon caused by Sodium Water Reaction (SWR). Numerical analysis of multiphase flow with chemical reaction near the initial crack is firstly performed. The wastage amount is evaluated based on hypothetical Arrhenius equation by using the temperature and molar concentration of sodium hydroxide. New analytical grid is created by exchanging the solid cells to fluid cells in the reaction based on the wastage amount evaluation. These series of procedure is repeated. The width and the shape of the enlarged crack showed good agreement with the experimental results.

Proposal of benchmark problem of thermal striping phenomena in planar triple parallel jets tests for fundamental code validation in sodium-cooled fast reactor development

Kobayashi, Jun; Tanaka, Masaaki; Ohno, Shuji; Ohshima, Hiroyuki; Kamide, Hideki

Proceedings of 16th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-16) (USB Flash Drive), p.6664 - 6677, 2015/08

Numerical simulation is recognized an essential tool for the physical phenomena analysis and plant design study of a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR). In order to enhance credibility of the numerical results in the activities for plant design by using numerical simulations, it is recognized that verification and validation (V&V) process is very important. In this study, experiments for planar triple parallel jets mixing phenomena conducted in JAEA were proposed as benchmark problems for the code validation in the area of thermal striping study in the SFR development.