Validation of dynamic analysis code for high temperature gas-cooled reactor connecting hydrogen production system with a heat removal fluctuation mitigation system

Hasegawa, Takeshi; Aoki, Takeshi; Shimizu, Atsushi; Sato, Hiroyuki

Proceedings of 14th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics, Operation, and Safety (NUTHOS-14) (Internet), 12 Pages, 2024/08

Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) is planning a nuclear hydrogen production demonstration test by connecting a hydrogen production to the HTTR (High Temperature engineering Test Reactor), a 30MWt High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) test reactor located at JAEA's Oarai Research Institute. The objective of the test is to establish coupling technologies between HTGR and a hydrogen production plant. One of key technologies to be developed is a thermal absorber consists of a steam generator and a radiator that can mitigate rapid fluctuations in helium temperatures during loss of heat load in the hydrogen production plant. The present study aims to develop an evaluation model for the absorber system that can be used for safety analyses of the HTTR for coupling a hydrogen production plant. A set of closed loop model is newly introduced to a RELAP5-based system analysis code to enable evaluation of steam-water natural circulation behavior between the steam generator heated by helium and the radiator cooled by ambient air. Experimental data obtained from a mock-up test facility of thermal absorber system is compared with calculated results of the developed model. As a results of the comparative study, it was confirmed that numerical analysis results were agreed well with experimental results. In conclusion, the proposed evaluation model is applicable for the safety analysis of a thermal absorber system to be deployed in HTGR hydrogen production systems.

Study on eutectic melting behavior of control rod materials in severe accidents of sodium-cooled fast reactors, 4; Analyzing Eutectic Melting and Relocation Dynamics in BC-stainless steel using the Moving Particle Semi-Implicit (MPS) Method

Ahmed, Z.*; Wu, S.*; Pellegrini, M.*; Okamoto, Koji*; Sharma, A.*; Yamano, Hidemasa

Proceedings of 14th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics, Operation, and Safety (NUTHOS-14) (Internet), 14 Pages, 2024/08

The analysis show that once eutectic reaction occurs, the boron diffuses into the stainless steel (SS) wall. Melting initiates at the BC and SS interface, with melt flow following SS cladding penetration. Also, we observed that as temperature rises, a proportional increase in the boron concentration within the melt. The updated MPS method indicated a computational capability of the eutectic reaction model used to effectively analyze control rod eutectic reactions, simulating severe accidents, and its subsequent relocation to understand the effect of BC ingress into the core.

Study on eutectic melting behavior of control rod materials in severe accidents of sodium-cooled fast reactors, 1; Project overview and progress until 2022

Yamano, Hidemasa; Takai, Toshihide; Emura, Yuki; Fukuyama, Hiroyuki*; Higashi, Hideo*; Nishi, Tsuyoshi*; Morita, Koji*; Nakamura, Kinya*; Ahmed, Z.*; Pellegrini, M.*

Proceedings of 14th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics, Operation, and Safety (NUTHOS-14) (Internet), 12 Pages, 2024/08

This paper describes the project overview and progress of experimental and analytical studies conducted until 2022. A specific result in this paper is to obtain first experimental data of BC-SS eutectic freezing.

Evaluation of interface capturing schemes of VOF method through application to bubble flows with single orifice

Fukuda, Takanari; Yamashita, Susumu; Yoshida, Hiroyuki

Proceedings of 14th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics, Operation, and Safety (NUTHOS-14) (Internet), 12 Pages, 2024/08

The VOF method is a type of CFDs that is most widely applied to multiphase flow analysis involving advective interfaces, and several interface-capturing schemes have been developed for an accurate advection of VOF values. However, the performance of these schemes has typically been evaluated only for limited numerical problems where velocity fields are spatially orderly and fixed in time. Few studies have been conducted to evaluate the performance of these schemes for more realistic and complex conditions, such as gas-liquid two-phase flows in nuclear reactors. Therefore, in this study, three-dimensional analysis of bubble flows has been conducted using the interface-capturing schemes of THINC and THINC/WLIC, which have been developed relatively recently. Evaluation is performed using more engineering indicators such as the number, volume, and trajectory of bubbles, which can influence the void fraction distribution in reactor cores. The results of these comparisons showed that the VOF value could be significantly diffused, leading to numerical brake-up and dissipation of the bubbles, with the influence of interface-capturing scheme.

Study on eutectic melting behavior of control rod materials in core disruptive accidents of sodium-cooled fast reactors, 1; Project overview and progress until 2020

Yamano, Hidemasa; Takai, Toshihide; Emura, Yuki; Fukuyama, Hiroyuki*; Higashi, Hideo*; Nishi, Tsuyoshi*; Ota, Hiromichi*; Morita, Koji*; Nakamura, Kinya*; Fukai, Hirofumi*; et al.

Proceedings of 13th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics, Operation and Safety (NUTHOS-13) (Internet), 12 Pages, 2022/09

This paper describes the project overview and progress of experimental and analytical studies conducted until 2020. Specific results in this paper are the measurement of the eutectic reaction rates and the validation of physical model describing the eutectic reaction in the analysis code through the numerical analysis of the BC-SS eutectic reaction rate experiments in which a BC pellet was placed in a SS crucible.

Development of the simplified boiling model applied to the large-scale detailed simulation

Ono, Ayako; Yamashita, Susumu; Sakashita, Hiroto*; Suzuki, Takayuki*; Yoshida, Hiroyuki

Proceedings of 13th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics, Operation and Safety (NUTHOS-13) (Internet), 12 Pages, 2022/09

Japan Atomic Energy Agency is developing the computational fluid dynamics code, JUPITER, based on the volume of fluid (VOF) method to analyze detailed thermal-hydraulics in a reactor. The detailed numerical simulation of boiling from a heating surface needs a substantial computational cost to resolve the microscale thermal-hydraulic phenomena such as the bubble generation from a cavity and evaporation of a micro-layer. This study developed the simplified boiling model from the heating surface to reduce the computational cost, which will apply to the detailed simulation code based on the surface tracking method such as JUPITER. We applied the simplified boiling model to JUPITER, and compared the simulation results with the experimental data of the vertical heating surface in the forced convection. We confirmed the degree of their reproducibility, and the issues to be modified were extracted.

Analysis on cooling behavior for simulated molten core material impinging to a horizontal plate in a sodium pool

Matsushita, Hatsuki*; Kobayashi, Ren*; Sakai, Takaaki*; Kato, Shinya; Matsuba, Kenichi; Kamiyama, Kenji

Proceedings of 13th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics, Operation and Safety (NUTHOS-13) (Internet), 9 Pages, 2022/09

During core disruptive accidents in sodium-cooled fast reactors, the molten core material flows through flow channels, such as the control rod guide tubes, into the core inlet plenum under the core region. The molten core material can be cooled and solidified while impinging on a horizontal plate of the inlet plenum in a sodium coolant. However, the solidification and cooling behaviors of molten core materials impinged on a horizontal structure have not been sufficiently studied thus far. Notably, this is an important phenomenon that needs to be elucidated from the perspective of improving the safety of sodium-cooled fast reactors. Accordingly, a series of experiments on discharging a simulated molten core material (alumina: AlO) into a sodium coolant on a horizontal structure was conducted at the experimental facility of the National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In this study, analyses on the sodium experiments using SIMMER-III as the fast reactor safety evaluation code were performed. The analysis methods were validated by comparing the results and experiment data. In addition, the cooling and solidification behaviors during jet impingement were evaluated. The results indicated that the molten core material exhibited fragmentation owing to the impingement on the horizontal plate and was, therefore, scattered toward the periphery. Furthermore, the simulated molten core material was evaluated to be cooled by sodium and subsequently solidified.

Level 1 PRA for external vessel storage tank of Japan sodium-cooled fast reactor in whole core refueling

Yamano, Hidemasa; Kurisaka, Kenichi; Nishino, Hiroyuki; Okano, Yasushi; Naruto, Kenichi*

Proceedings of 12th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics, Operation and Safety (NUTHOS-12) (USB Flash Drive), 15 Pages, 2018/10

Spent fuels are transferred from a reactor core to a spent fuel pool through an external vessel storage tank (EVST) filled with sodium in sodium-cooled fast reactors in Japan. This paper describes identification of dominant accident sequences leading to fuel failure, which was achieved through probabilistic risk assessment for the EVST designed for a next sodium-cooled fast reactor plant system in Japan to improve the EVST design. The safety strategy for the EVST involves whole core refueling (early transfer of all core fuel assemblies into the EVST) assuming a severe situation that results in sodium level reduction leading finally to the top of the reactor core fuel assemblies in a long time. This study introduces the success criteria mitigation along the decay heat decrease over time. Based on the design information, this study has carried out identification of initiating events, event and fault tree analyses, a probability analysis for human error, and quantification of accident sequences. The fuel damage frequency of the EVST was evaluated to be approx. 10/year. The dominant accident sequence resulted from the static failure and human error for the switching from the stand-by to operation mode in the three stand-by cooling circuits after loss of one circuit for refueling heat removal operation as an initiating phase.

Numerical simulation of natural circulation experiment under asymmetric cooldown using LSTF

Ishigaki, Masahiro; Watanabe, Tadashi*

Proceedings of 12th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics, Operation and Safety (NUTHOS-12) (USB Flash Drive), 10 Pages, 2018/10

When coolant in one of the secondary side of steam generator (SG) is lost under some accident condition, the NC in the loop with the affected SG may terminate. Hence, the experiment was done in order to discuss the behavior of the natural circulation flow when the secondary side of the intact SG was depressurized stepwisely and that of the affected SG was empty of coolant. In this paper, we analyzed this NC experiment using the LSTF by the TRACE code. The objective of this analysis is to clarify the sensitivity of the code to the NC behavior. The calculated mass flow rate in the intact loop was slightly underestimated compared with the experimental result. On the other hand, the calculated mass flow rate in the affected loop was overestimated compared with the experimental result. In addition, we did the sensitivity analysis of the NC behavior in the case that the cooldown rate was changed.

Optimization of design of the LBE spallation target at JAEA

Wan, T.; Obayashi, Hironari; Sasa, Toshinobu

Proceedings of 12th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics, Operation and Safety (NUTHOS-12) (USB Flash Drive), 14 Pages, 2018/10