Preliminary analysis of sodium experimental apparatus PLANDTL-2 for development of evaluation method for thermal-hydraulics in reactor vessel of sodium fast reactor under decay heat removal system operation condition

Ono, Ayako; Tanaka, Masaaki; Miyake, Yasuhiro*; Hamase, Erina; Ezure, Toshiki

Mechanical Engineering Journal (Internet), 7(3), p.19-00546_1 - 19-00546_11, 2020/06

https://doi.org/10.1299/mej.19-00546

Fully natural circulation decay heat removal systems (DHRSs) are to be adopted for sodium fast reactors, which is a passive safety feature without any electrical pumps. It is required to grasp the thermal-hydraulic phenomena in the reactor vessel and evaluate the coolability of the core under the natural circulation not only for the normal operating condition but also for severe accident conditions. In this paper, the numerical results of the preliminary analysis for the sodium experimental condition with the PLANDTL-2 are discussed to establish an appropriate numerical models for the reactor core including the gap region among the subassemblies and the DHX. From these preliminary analyses, the characteristics of the thermal-hydraulics behavior in the PLANDTL-2 to be focused are extracted.