A Study on sodium-concrete reaction in presence of internal heating

Kawaguchi, Munemichi; Miyahara, Shinya*; Uno, Masayoshi*

Journal of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science, 6(2), p.021305_1 - 021305_9, 2020/04

https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4045898

Sodium-concrete reaction (SCR) is one of the important phenomena during severe accidents in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) owing to the generation of large sources of hydrogen and aerosols in the containment vessel. In this study, SCR experiments with an internal heater were performed to investigate the chemical reaction beneath the internal heater (800C), which was used to simulate the obstacle and heating effect on SCR. Furthermore, the effects of the internal heater on the self-termination mechanism were discussed. The internal heater on the concrete hindered the transport of Na into the concrete. Therefore, Na could start to react with the concrete at the periphery of the internal heater, and the concrete ablation depth at the periphery was larger than under the internal heater. The high Na pool temperature of 800C increased largely the Na aerosol release rate, which was explained by Na evaporation and hydrogen bubbling, and formed the porous reaction product layer, whose porosity was 0.54-0.59 from the mass balance of Si and image analyzing EPMA mapping. They had good agreement with each other. The porous reaction products decreased the amount of Na transport into the reaction front. The Na concentration around the reaction front became about 30wt.% despite the position of the internal heater. It was found that the Na concentration condition was one of the dominant parameters for the self-termination of SCR, even in the presence of the internal heater.

Comparative methodology between actual RCCS and downscaled heat-removal test facility

Takamatsu, Kuniyoshi; Matsumoto, Tatsuya*; Liu, W.*; Morita, Koji*

Annals of Nuclear Energy, 133, p.830 - 836, 2019/11

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2019.07.025

A RCCS having passive safety features through radiation and natural convection was proposed. The RCCS design consists of two continuous closed regions: an ex-reactor pressure vessel region and a cooling region with a heat-transfer surface to ambient air. The RCCS uses a novel shape to remove efficiently the heat released from the RPV through as much radiation as possible. Employing air as the working fluid and ambient air as the ultimate heat sink, the RCCS design can strongly reduce the possibility of losing the working fluid and the heat sink for decay-heat-removal. Moreover, the authors started experiment research with using a scaled-down heat-removal test facility. Therefore, this study propose a comparative methodology between an actual RCCS and a scaled-down heat-removal test facility.

Decision-making process on selection of management policy for high-level radioactive waste; As an example of Switzerland and United Kingdom

Osawa, Hideaki; Hirose, Yukio*; Onuma, Susumu*; Otomo, Shoji*

Shakai Anzengaku Kenkyu, 9, p.145 - 160, 2019/03

https://www.kansai-u.ac.jp/Fc_ss/center/study/bulletin_009.html

We compared decision-making process on selection of management policy for high-level radioactive waste between Switzerland and UK by document review. The decision-making was performed extraction of options, establishment of comparative criteria, assessment and selection of options in turn. As comparative criteria, safety and intergenerational fairness etc. were considered to be important. The position of 'Deal with it now by waste disposal' emphasizing the responsibility of the present generation had a trade-off relation with that of 'Leave it until later by long-term storage' emphasizing the rights of future generations. The sense of values, recusing HLW repository as so-called troublesome facility against future and present generation, appeared to be mitigated through the consideration of trade-off relation described above. As a result, both countries have chosen waste disposal considering reversibility of decisions and retrievability of radioactive waste.

Evaluation of the effect of spent fuel layout on SFP cooling with MAAP5.04

Nishimura, Satoshi*; Satake, Masaaki*; Nishi, Yoshihisa*; Kaji, Yoshiyuki; Nemoto, Yoshiyuki

Proceedings of 11th Korea-Japan Symposium on Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics and Safety (NTHAS-11) (Internet), 3 Pages, 2018/11

After the accident of Fukushima-unit 1 Nuclear Power Plant, Japanese utilities are newly requested by regulatory body to take prompt measures to enhance the safety of spent fuel pool. The most important objective of this new Japanese standards of regulation is keeping a water level in a Spent Fuel Pool (SFP) under any situations in order to prevent fuel failures due to increase of fuel temperature and to avoid the occurrence of re-criticality accidents. The utilities are considered to install several kinds of safety measures for SFP. For example, a spray injection and an alternate water injection to keep pool water level, and a spent fuel layout, such as 1 by 4, 1 by 8, checkerboard to enhance cooling of the spent fuel in SFP. The objective of the present study is to investigate the effect of spent fuel layout on SFP cooling with MAAP5.04.

Research on demand of HTGR for investigation of introduction scenario and investigation on heat balance of HTGR

Fukaya, Yuji; Kasahara, Seiji; Mizuta, Naoki; Inaba, Yoshitomo; Shibata, Taiju; Nishihara, Tetsuo

JAEA-Research 2018-004, 38 Pages, 2018/06

JAEA-Research-2018-004.pdf:1.81MB

The demand of HTGR to investigate its introduction scenario and heat balance of HTGR have been researched. First, previous studies of HTGR demand were researched. Next, heat balance of GTHTR300, a commercial scale HTGR design, and its characteristics were researched. By using this information, installation number of HTGR to suit for demand in Japan are evaluated. In addition, heat balance evaluation code was developed in this study.

Analytical studies on fuel element failure propagation due to adventitious fuel pin failure in small to large size sodium-cooled fast reactors

Fukano, Yoshitaka

Proceedings of 11th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, Operation and Safety (NUTHOS-11) (USB Flash Drive), 12 Pages, 2016/10

Probabilistic and deterministic safety assessments and experimental studies on local fault (LF) propagation in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) have been performed in many countries because LFs have been historically considered as one of the possible causes of severe accidents. Adventitious fuel pin failures have been considered to be the most dominant initiators of LFs in these probabilistic assessments because of its high frequency of occurrence during reactor operation and possibility of subsequent pin-to-pin failure propagation. The four possible mechanisms of fuel element failure propagation from adventitious fuel pin failure (FEFPA) were identified in the past study. All the mechanisms for FEFPA analysis including thermal, mechanical and chemical propagation were modeled into a safety assessment code which was applicable to arbitrary SFRs. Safety analyses on FEFPA of Japanese experimental fast reactor (JOYO), Japanese prototype fast breeder reactor (Monju), Japanese prototype fast breeder reactor with upgraded reactor core (Upgraded Monju) and Japan sodium-cooled fast reactor (JSFR) were performed using this methodology. Although analytical results were different owing to the different core designs in four SFRs, it was clarified in this study that FEFPA was highly unlikely in these SFRs. These results also suggest future possibility of long-term run-beyond-cladding-breach operation which would enhance the economic efficiency in SFRs.

Design approach for mitigation of air ingress in high temperature gas-cooled reactor

Sato, Hiroyuki; Ohashi, Hirofumi; Nakagawa, Shigeaki

Proceedings of 24th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE-24) (DVD-ROM), 8 Pages, 2016/06

https://doi.org/10.1115/ICONE24-60232

This paper intends to propose a practical solution to protect HTGR from severe oxidation against air ingress accidents without reliance on subsystems. Firstly, a change is made to the center reflector structure to minimize temperature difference during the accident condition in order to reduce buoyancy-driven natural circulation in the reactor. Secondly, a modified structure of the upper reflector is suggested to prevent massive air ingress against a rupture in standpipes. As a preliminary study, a numerical analysis is performed for a typical prismatic-type HTGR to study the effectiveness of the proposed design concept using simplified lumped element models. The results showed that amount of air ingress into the reactor can be significantly reduced with practical changes to local structure in the reactor.

Hydrophobic platinum honeycomb catalyst to be used for tritium oxidation reactors

Iwai, Yasunori; Kubo, Hitoshi*; Oshima, Yusuke*; Noguchi, Hiroshi*; Edao, Yuki; Taniuchi, Junichi*

Fusion Science and Technology, 68(3), p.596 - 600, 2015/10

https://doi.org/10.13182/FST14-921

We have newly developed the hydrophobic platinum honeycomb catalysts applicable to tritium oxidation reactor since the honeycomb-shape catalyst can decrease the pressure drop. Two types of hydrophobic honeycomb catalyst have been test-manufactured. One is the hydrophobic platinum catalyst on a metal honeycomb. The other is the hydrophobic platinum catalyst on a ceramic honeycomb made of silicon carbide. The fine platinum particles around a few nanometers significantly improve the catalytic activity for the oxidation tritium at a tracer concentration. The hydrogen concentration in the gaseous feed slightly affects the overall reaction rate constant for hydrogen oxidation. Due to the competitive adsorption of hydrogen and water molecules on platinum surface, the overall reaction rate constant has the bottom value. The hydrogen concentration for the bottom value is 100 ppm under the dry feed gas. We have experimentally confirmed the activity of these honeycomb catalysts is as good as that of pellet-shape hydrophobic catalyst. The results support the hydrophobic honeycomb catalysts are applicable to tritium oxidation reactor.

Development of hydrophobic platinum catalyst for the effective collection of tritium in fusion plants

Iwai, Yasunori; Kubo, Hitoshi*; Oshima, Yusuke*

Isotope News, (736), p.12 - 17, 2015/08

http://www.jrias.or.jp/books/pdf/201508_TENBO_IWAI.pdf

We have successfully developed a new hydrophobic platinum catalyst for collecting tritium at nuclear fusion reactors. Catalysts used to collect tritium are called hydrophobic precious metal catalysts. In Japan, hydrophobic precious metal catalysts manufactured from polymers have been used for heavy water refinement.However, this catalyst has issues related to embrittlement to radiation and thermal stability. These technological issues needed to be solved to allow for its application to nuclear fusion reactors requiring further enrichment from highly-concentrated tritiated water. We developed a new method of manufacturing catalysts involving hydrophobic processing with an inorganic substance base. As a result, previous technological issues were able to be solved with the development of a catalyst that exhibited no performance degradation in response to radiation application of 530kGy, a standard for radiation resistance, and maintenance of thermal stability at over 600C, which is much higher than the 70C temperature that is normally used. The catalyst created with this method was also confirmed to have achieved the world's highest exchange efficiency, equivalent to 1.3 times the previously most powerful efficiency. The application of this catalyst to the liquid phase catalytic exchange process is expected to overcome significant technological hurdles with regards to improving the reliability and efficiency of systems for collecting tritium from tritiated water.

Key aspects of the safety study of a water-cooled fusion DEMO reactor

Nakamura, Makoto; Tobita, Kenji; Someya, Yoji; Tanigawa, Hisashi; Gulden, W.*; Sakamoto, Yoshiteru; Araki, Takao*; Watanabe, Kazuhito*; Matsumiya, Hisato*; Ishii, Kyoko*; et al.

Plasma and Fusion Research (Internet), 9, p.1405139_1 - 1405139_11, 2014/10

https://doi.org/10.1585/pfr.9.1405139

Key aspects of the safety study of a water-cooled fusion DEMO reactor is reported. Safety requirements, dose target, DEMO plant model and confinement strategy of the safety study are briefly introduced. The internal hazard of a water-cooled DEMO, i.e. radioactive inventories, stored energies that can mobilize these inventories and accident initiators and scenarios, are evaluated. It is pointed out that the enthalpy in the first wall/blanket cooling loops, the decay heat and the energy potentially released by the Be-steam chemical reaction are of special concern for the water-cooled DEMO. An ex-vessel loss-of-coolant of the first wall/blanket cooling loop is also quantitatively analyzed. The integrity of the building against the ex-VV LOCA is discussed.