• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.23-28
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• 2003

When a cold HPSI (High Pressure Safety Injection) fluid associated with a design basis accident, such as LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accident), enters the cold legs of a stagnated primary coolant loop, thermal stratification phenomena may arise due to incomplete mixing. If the stratified flow enters a reactor pressure vessel downcomer, severe thermal stresses are created in a radiation embrittled vessel wall by local overcooling. Previous thermal-mixing analyses have assumed that the thermal stratification phenomena generated in stagnated loop of a partially stagnated collant loop are neutralized in the vessel downcomer by strong flow from unstagnated loop. On the basis of these reasons, this paper presents the thermal-mixing analysis results in order to identify the fact that the cold plume generated in the vessel downcomer due to the thermal stratification phenomena of the stagnated loop is affected by the strong flow of the unstagnated loop.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.183-189
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• 2005

Nuclear containment structure is the last barrier for being secure from any nuclear power plant accident. Even though the safety requirements of nuclear power plant have been focused on removing accidental situations, nuclear containment structure must reserve the sufficient resisting capacity to any accident because it works as the last barrier. The acceptable nuclear containment structure makes possible to limit the effect of internal accidents and to avoid radioactive release. In this study, to conduct the numerical analysis for the structural safety of a containment structure, loss of coolant accident (LOCA) is considered as the basic accidental load, and Wolsong containment structure is considered as a target structure. The CANDU containment structure, such as Wolsong containment structure, is a prestressed concrete shell structure which has dome and is reinforced with bonded tendons. The evaluation of ultimate pressure capacity was conducted by nonlinear analysis of a prestressed concrete containment structure.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 1998.05a
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• pp.75-81
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• 1998

A new advanced integral reactor of 330 MWt capacity named SMART(System-integrated Modular Advanced ReacTor) is currently under development at KAERI(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute). One of the major design features of the integral reactor is locating the steam generators(SG) inside reactor vessel and eliminating the possibility of LB LOCA(large Break Loss of Coolant Accident). Orifices are fitted at the low part of steam generator cassette to stabilize and balance coolant flow distribution in the MCP (Main Circulation Pump) pressure header. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to determine the optimum orifice size using computer code 'CFX'.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.54-70
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• 2017

The accumulator is a passive safety injection device for emergency core cooling systems. As an important safety feature for providing a high-speed injection flow to the core by compressed nitrogen gas pressure during a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA), the accumulator injects its precharged nitrogen into the system after its coolant has been emptied. Attention has been drawn to the possible negative effects caused by such a nitrogen injection in passive safety nuclear power plants. Although some experimental work on the nitrogen injection has been done, there have been no comparative tests in which the effects on the system responses and the core safety have been clearly assessed. In this study, a new thermal hydraulic integral test facility-the advanced core-cooling mechanism experiment (ACME)-was designed and constructed to support the CAP1400 safety review. The ACME test facility was used to study the nitrogen injection effects on the system responses to the small break loss-of-coolant accident LOCA (SBLOCA) transient. Two comparison test groups-a 2-inch cold leg break and a double-ended direct-vessel-injection (DEDVI) line break-were conducted. Each group consists of a nitrogen injection test and a nitrogen isolation comparison test with the same break conditions. To assess the nitrogen injection effects, the experimental data that are representative of the system responses and the core safety were compared and analyzed. The results of the comparison show that the effects of nitrogen injection on system responses and core safety are significantly different between the 2-inch and DEDVI breaks. The mechanisms of the different effects on the transient were also investigated. The amount of nitrogen injected, along with its heat absorption, was likewise evaluated in order to assess its effect on the system depressurization process. The results of the comparison and analyses in this study are important for recognizing and understanding the potential negative effects on the passive core cooling performance caused by nitrogen injection during the SBLOCA transient.

• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.106-113
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• 2017

Background: Interfacing-system loss-of-coolant-accident (ISLOCA) has been identified as the most hazardous accident scenario in the typical PWR plants. The present study as an effort to improve the knowledge of the source term to the environment during ISLOCA focuses on an improvement of the estimation method. Materials and Methods: The improvement was performed to take into account an effect of broken pipeline and auxiliary building structures relevant to ISLOCA. An estimation of the source term to the environment was for the OPR-1000 plants by MELOCR code version 1.8.6. Results and Discussion: The key features of the source term showed that the massive amount of fission products departed from the beginning of core degradation to the vessel breach. Conclusion: The release amount of fission products may be affected by the broken pipeline and the auxiliary building structure associated with release pathway.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.343-351
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• 2011

Nuclear containment building is the last barrier for being secure from any nuclear power plant accident. Therefore, it is very important to understand the ultimate capacity of nuclear containment building to loads associated with severe accidents. LOCA (loss of coolant accident) is considered as the basic accidental load and CANDU-type containment building is considered as a target structure in order to conduct the numerical analysis for the structural safety of a containment building. The CANDU-type containment building is a prestressed concrete shell structure which has the dome and the cylindrical wall and is reinforced with bonded tendons. In this paper, the evaluation of ultimate internal pressure capacity was carried out by nonlinear analysis of a prestressed concrete containment building using 3-dimensional structural analysis system.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.402-409
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• 2019

When a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) occurs in a nuclear power plant, accident scenarios which can prevent core damage are defined based on break size. Current probabilistic safety assessment evaluates that core damage can be prevented under small-break LOCA (SBLOCA) and steam generator tube rupture (SGTR) with rapid cool down (RCD) strategy when all safety injection systems are unavailable. However, previous research has pointed out a limitation of RCD in terms of initiation time. Therefore, RCD success criteria estimation based on allowable coping time under a SBLOCA or SGTR when all safety injection systems are unavailable was performed based on time-line and thermal-hydraulic analyses. The time line analysis assumed a single emergency operating procedure flow, and the thermal hydraulic analysis utilized MARS-KS code with variables of break size, cooling rate, and operator allowable time. Results show while RCD is possible under SGTR, it is impossible under SBLOCA at the APR1400's current cooling rate limitation of 55 K/hr. A success criteria map for RCD under SBLOCA is suggested without cooling rate limitation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.2053-2068
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• 2023

Following a loss of coolant accident (LOCA), prestressing concrete containment vessels (PCCVs) may experience high thermal load as well as internal pressure. The high temperature stress would increase the risk of premature damage to the containment, which reduces the safety margin during the increasing internal pressure. However, current investigations cannot clearly address the issues of thermal-pressure coupling effect on damage propagation and thus safety of the containment. Thus, this paper offers three simple and powerful damage parameters to differentiate the severity of damage of the containment. Moreover, despite of the temperature action severely threatening the pressure performance of the containment, the research regarding the improvement of the resistant performance of the containment is quite scarce. Therefore, in this paper, a comprehensive comparison of damage propagation and mechanism between conventional and fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) containments is performed. The effects of fiber characteristics parameters on damage propagation of structures following the LOCA are also specifically revealed. It is found that the proposed damage indices can properly indicate state of damage in the containment body and the addition of fiber can be used to obviously mitigate the damage propagation in PCCV considering the thermal-pressure coupling.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.850-860
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• 2023

An industrial control process multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) coupled system is analyzed in this study as an example of a Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) simulation system. Ordinary control algorithms can complete the steady state of the control system and even reduce the response time to some extent, but the entire system still consumes a large amount of energy after reaching the steady state. So a multivariable decoupled energy-saving control method is proposed, and a novel energy-saving function (economic function, Eco-Function) is specially designed based on the active disturbance rejection control algorithm. Simulations and LOCA simulation system tests show that the Eco-function algorithm can cope with the uncertainty of the multivariable system's internal parameters and external disturbances, and it can save up to 67% of energy consumption in maintaining the parameter steady state.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.755-763
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• 2020

The critical flow phenomenon has been studied because of its significant effect for design basis accidents in nuclear power plants. Transition points from thermal non-equilibrium to equilibrium are different according to the geometric effect on the critical flow. This study evaluates the uncertainty parameters of the critical flow model for analysis of DBA (Design Basis Accident) with the MARS-KS (Multi-dimensional Analysis for Reactor Safety-KINS Standard) code used as an independent regulatory assessment. The uncertainty of the critical flow model is represented by three parameters including the thermal non-equilibrium factor, discharge coefficient, and length to diameter (L/D) ratio, and their ranges are determined using large-scale Marviken test data. The uncertainty range of the thermal non-equilibrium factor is updated by the MCDA (Model Calibration through Data Assimilation) method. The updated uncertainty range is confirmed using an LBLOCA (Large Break Loss of Coolant Accident) experiment in the LOFT (Loss of Fluid Test) facility. The uncertainty ranges are also used to calculate an LBLOCA of the APR (Advanced Power Reactor) 1400 NPP (Nuclear Power Plants), focusing on the effect of the PCT (Peak Cladding Temperature). The results reveal that break flow is strongly dependent on the degree of the thermal non-equilibrium state in a ruptured pipe with a small L/D ratio. Moreover, this study provides the method to handle the thermal non-equilibrium factor, discharge coefficient, and length to diameter (L/D) ratio in the system code.