Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Experimental study on the retention of aerosol particles through concrete cracks under high Reynolds number flow

  • Hui Wang (Fundamental Science on Nuclear Safety and Simulation Technology Laboratory, Harbin Engineering University) ;
  • Zhongning Sun (Fundamental Science on Nuclear Safety and Simulation Technology Laboratory, Harbin Engineering University) ;
  • Haifeng Gu (Fundamental Science on Nuclear Safety and Simulation Technology Laboratory, Harbin Engineering University) ;
  • Ji Xing (Fundamental Science on Nuclear Safety and Simulation Technology Laboratory, Harbin Engineering University) ;
  • Xiaohui Sun (China Nuclear Power Engineering Co., Ltd) ;
  • Xueyao Shi (China Nuclear Power Engineering Co., Ltd) ;
  • Bin Zhao (State Key Laboratory of Disaster Reduction in Civil Engineering, Tongji University)
  • Received : 2024.01.13
  • Accepted : 2024.05.11
  • Published : 2024.10.25
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Abstract

In the event of severe accidents in pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear power plants, the potential leakage of radioactive aerosols through containment cracks poses a considerable radioactive hazard to the public. Understanding aerosol transport and retention in cracks helps reduce the conservatism and uncertainty of radioactive hazard assessment. Concrete cracks are recognized as a pivotal pathway for the leakage of radioactive aerosols, and several researchers have undertaken experimental investigations concerning the aerosol transport and retention in concrete cracks. However, the majority of these studies have rather low gas flow Reynolds numbers. In this work, an experimental setup is built to study aerosol transport and retention in concrete cracks under high Reynolds number flow. The TiO2 aerosol with a mass median diameter of 1 ㎛ and two concrete crack specimens are used in experiments. The results of gas flow experiments indicate that the Reynolds number is capable of reaching 10547. Combining the flow experimental data and Suzuki's formula, the equivalent heights of these two crack specimens are approximated as 303.67 ㎛ and 231.48 ㎛. The experimental results indicate a notably high retention rate of aerosols, exceeding 0.8. Furthermore, under high Reynolds number flow, the retention rate varies over a relatively narrow range, with the larger the equivalent height of the crack resulting in a lower retention rate. The experimental results match well with the mechanistic analysis based on inertial deposition theory, demonstrating the rationality of the inertial deposition theory.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by National Key R&D Program of China (Grant no. of the project: 2020YFB1901401)

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