Abstract
A new advanced safety feature of DVI+ (Direct Vessel Injection Plus) for the APR+ (Advanced Power Reactor Plus), to mitigate the ECC (Emergency Core Cooling) bypass fraction and to prevent switching an ECC outlet to a break flow inlet during a DVI line break, is presented for an advanced DVI system. In the current DVI system, the ECC water injected into the downcomer is easily shifted to the broken cold leg by a high steam cross flow which comes from the intact cold legs during the late reflood phase of a LBLOCA (Large Break Loss Of Coolant Accident)For the new DVI+ system, an ECBD (Emergency Core Barrel Duct) is installed on the outside of a core barrel cylinder. The ECBD has a gap (From the core barrel wall to the ECBD inner wall to the radial direction) of 3/25~7/25 of the downcomer annulus gap. The DVI nozzle and the ECBD are only connected by the ECC water jet, which is called a hydrodynamic water bridge, during the ECC injection period. Otherwise these two components are disconnected from each other without any pipes inside the downcomer. The ECBD is an ECC downward isolation flow sub-channel which protects the ECC water from the high speed steam crossflow in the downcomer annulus during a LOCA event. The injected ECC water flows downward into the lower downcomer through the ECBD without a strong entrainment to a steam cross flow. The outer downcomer annulus of the ECBD is the major steam flow zone coming from the intact cold leg during a LBLOCA. During a DVI line break, the separated DVI nozzle and ECBD have the effect of preventing the level of the cooling water from being lowered in the downcomer due to an inlet-outlet reverse phenomenon at the lowest position of the outlet of the ECBD.
