Abstract
During a hypothetical severe accident in a nuclear power plant (NPP), hydrogen is generated by the active reaction of fuel-cladding and steam in the reactor pressure vessel and released with steam into the containment. In order to mitigate hydrogen hazards possibly occurred in the NPP containment, hydrogen mitigation system (HMS) is usually adopted. The design of the next generation NPP (APR1400) designed in Korea specifies 26 passive autocatalytic recombiners and 10 igniters installed in the containment for the hydrogen mitigation. in this study, the analysis of the hydrogen and steam behavior during a total lose of feed water (TLOFW) accident in the APR1400 containment has been conducted by using the CFD code GASFLOW. During the accident, a huge amount of hot water, steam, and hydrogen is released in the in-containment refueling water storage tank (IRWST). The current design of the APR1400 includes flap-type dampers at the IRWST vents which are operated depending on the pressure difference between inside and outside of the IRWST. it was found that the flaps strongly affects the flow structure of the steam and hydrogen in the containment. The possibilities of a flame acceleration and transition from deflagration to detonation (DDT) were evaluated by using Sigma-Lambda criteria. Numerical results indicate the DDT possibility could be heavily reduced in the IRWST compartment when the flaps are installed.
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