• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권12호
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• pp.2789-2802
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• 2020

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are attracting wide attention due to their outstanding performance, extensive studies have been carried out for lead-based fast reactors (LFRs) that cooled with Lead or Lead-bismuth (LBE), and small modular natural circulation LFR is one of the promising candidates for SMRs and LFRs development. One of the challenges for the design small modular natural circulation LFR is to master the natural circulation thermal-hydraulic performance in the reactor primary circuit, while the natural circulation characteristics is a coupled thermal-hydraulic problem of the core thermal power, the primary loop layout and the operating state of secondary cooling system etc. Thus, accurate predicting the natural circulation LFRs thermal-hydraulic features are highly required for conducting reactor operating condition evaluate and Thermal hydraulic design optimization. In this study, a thermal-hydraulic analysis code is developed for small modular natural circulation LFRs, which is based on several mathematical models for natural circulation originally. A small modular natural circulation LBE cooled fast reactor named URANUS developed by Korea is chosen to assess the code's capability. Comparisons are performed to demonstrate the accuracy of the code by the calculation results of MARS, and the key thermal-hydraulic parameters agree fairly well with the MARS ones. As a typical application case, steady-state analyses were conducted to have an assessment of thermal-hydraulic behavior under nominal condition, and several parameters affecting natural circulation were evaluated. What's more, two characteristics parameters that used to analyze natural circulation LFRs natural circulation capacity were established. The analyses show that the core thermal power, thermal center difference and flow resistance is the main factors affecting the reactor natural circulation. Improving the core thermal power, increasing the thermal center difference and decreasing the flow resistance can significantly increase the reactor mass flow rate. Characteristics parameters can be used to quickly evaluate the natural circulation capacity of natural circulation LFR under normal operating conditions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제53권5호
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• pp.1429-1435
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• 2021

The temperature distribution of an electromagnetic pump was analyzed with a flow rate of 1380 L/min and a pressure of 4 bar designed for the sodium thermo-hydraulic test in the Sodium Test Loop for Safety Simulation and Assessment-Phase 1 (STELLA-1). The electromagnetic pump was used for the circulation of the liquid sodium coolant in the Intermediate Heat Transport System (IHTS) of the Prototype Gen-IV Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (PGSFR) with an electric power of 150 MWe. The temperature distribution of the components of the electromagnetic pump was numerically analyzed to prevent functional degradation in the high temperature environment during pump operation. The heat transfer was numerically calculated using ANSYS Fluent for prediction of the temperature distribution in the excited coils, the electromagnet core, and the liquid sodium flow channel of the electromagnetic pump. The temperature distribution of operating electromagnetic pump was compared with cooling of natural and forced air circulation. The temperature in the coil, the core and the flow gap in the two conditions, natural circulation and forced circulation, were compared. The electromagnetic pump with cooling of forced circulation had better efficiency than natural circulation even considering consumption of the input power for the air blower. Accordingly, this study judged that forced cooling is good for both maintenance and efficiency of the electromagnetic pump.

• 한국안전학회지
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• 제33권3호
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• pp.92-98
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• 2018

The flow of cooling water in a passive containment cooling system (PCCS), used to remove heat released in design basis accidents from a concrete containment of light water nuclear power plant, was conducted in order to investigate the thermo-fluid equilibrium among many parallel tubes of PCCS. Numerical simulations of the subcooled boiling flow within a coolant loop of a PCCS, which will be installed in innovative pressurized-water reactor (PWR), were conducted using the commercially available computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS-CFX. Shear stress transport (SST) and the RPI model were used for turbulence closure and subcooled flow boiling, respectively. As the first step, the simplified geometry of PCCS with 36 tubes was modeled in order to reduce computational resource. Even and uneven thermal loading conditions were applied at the outer walls of parallel tubes for the simulation of the coolant flow in the PCCS at the initial phase of accident. It was observed that the natural circulation maintained in single-phase for all even and uneven thermal loading cases. For uneven thermal loading cases, coolant velocity in each tube were increased according to the applied heat flux. However, the flows were mixed well in the header and natural circulation of the whole cooling loop was not affected by uneven thermal loading significantly.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전산유체공학회 2008년도 춘계학술대회논문집
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• pp.308-311
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• 2008

As a severe accident mitigation strategy in a nuclear power plant, ERVC(External Reactor Vessel Cooling) has been proposed. Under ERVC conditions, where a molten corium is relocated in a reactor vessel lower head, a natural circulation two-phase flow is driven in the annular gap between the reactor vessel wall and its insulation. This flow should be sufficient to remove the decay heat of the molten corium and maintain the integrity of the reactor vessel. Preliminary experimental study was performed to estimate the natural circulation two-phase flow. The experimental facility which is one dimensional, the half height, and the 1/238 channel area of APR1400, was prepared and the experiments were carried out to estimate the natural circulation two-phase flow with varying the parameters of the coolant inlet area, the heat rate, and the coolant inlet subcooling. In results, the periodic circulation flow was observed and the characteristics were varied from the experimental parameters. The frequency of the natural circulation flow rate increased as the wall heat flux increased.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권9호
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• pp.1955-1962
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• 2020

In a sudden shutdown of primary pump or coolant loss accident in a marine nuclear power plant, the primary flow decreases rapidly in a transition process from forced circulation (FC) to natural circulation (NC), and the lower flow enters the steam generator (SG) causing reverse flow in the U-tube. This can significantly compromise the safety of nuclear power plants. Based on the marine natural circulation steam generator (NCSG), an experimental loop is constructed to study the characteristics of reverse flow under middle-temperature and middle-pressure conditions. The transition from FC to NC is simulated experimentally, and the characteristics of SG reverse flow are studied. On this basis, the experimental loop is numerically modeled using RELAP5/MOD3.3 code for system analysis, and the accuracy of the model is verified according to the experimental data. The influence of the flow variation rate on the reverse flow phenomenon and flow distribution is investigated. The experimental and numerical results show that in comparison with the case of adjusting the mass flow discontinuously, the number of reverse flow tubes increases significantly during the transition from FC to NC, and the reverse flow has a more severe impact on the operating characteristics of the SG. With the increase of flow variation rate, the reverse flow is less likely to occur. The mass flow in the reverse flow U-tubes increases at first and then decreases. When the system is approximately stable, the reverse flow is slightly lower than obverse flow in the same U-tube, while the flow in the obverse flow U-tube increases.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제48권6호
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• pp.1321-1329
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• 2016

To get an insight into the operating characteristics of the passive residual heat removal system of molten salt reactors, a two-phase natural circulation test facility was constructed. The system consists of a boiling loop absorbing the heat from the drain tank, a condensing loop consuming the heat, and a steam drum. A steady-state experiment was carried out, in which the thimble temperature ranged from $450^{\circ}C$ to $700^{\circ}C$ and the system pressure was controlled at levels below 150 kPa. When reaching a steady state, the system was operated under saturated conditions. Some important parameters, including heat power, system resistance, and water level in the steam drum and water tank were investigated. The experimental results showed that the natural circulation system is feasible in removing the decay heat, even though some fluctuations may occur in the operation. The uneven temperature distribution in the water tank may be inevitable because convection occurs on the outside of the condensing tube besides boiling with decreasing the decay power. The instabilities in the natural circulation loop are sensitive to heat flux and system resistance rather than the water level in the steam drum and water tank. RELAP5 code shows reasonable results compared with experimental data.

• 대한기계학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한기계학회 2003년도 춘계학술대회
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• pp.1897-1902
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• 2003

An 1/21.6 scaled experimental facility was prepared utilizing the results of a scaling analysis to simulate the APRI400 reactor and insulation system. The behaviors of the boiling-induced two-phase natural circulation flow in the insulation gap were observed, and the liquid mass flow rates driven by natural circulation loop were measured by varying the wall heat flux, upper exit slot area and configuration. And non-heating experiments have also been performed and discussed to certify the hydraulic similarity of the heating experiments by injecting air equivalent to the steam generated in the heating experimental condition.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1999년도 추계학술발표회요약집
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• pp.158.2-158
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• 1999

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1995년도 추계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.383-388
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• 1995

Two-phase transient phenomena in the noncondensable gas-filled closed loop was investigated numerically using the RELAP5/MOD3 version 3.1 computer code. The condensation heat transfer correlation for noncondensable gases was studied in detail. Two modes of the reflux condensation which can be characterized by countercurrent flow of steam and its condensed water and the oscillatory between reflux condensation and natural circulation were predicted well. However, the natural circulation mode which the condensed water carried over the U-bend concurrently with steam was failed to predict.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1997년도 춘계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.514-519
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• 1997

The MRX is an integral type ship reactor with 100 MWt power, which is designed by Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. It is characterized by integral type PWR, in-vessel type control roe drive mechanism, water-filled containment vessel and passive decay heat removal system. Marine reactor should have high passive safety. Therefore, in this study, we simulated the loss of flow accident to verify the passive decay heat removal by natural circulation using RETRAN-03 code. auxiliary feed water systems are used for decay heat removal mechanism and results are compared with the loss of flow accident analysis using emergency decay heat removal system by JAERI. Results are very similar to case of EDRS 1 loop operation in JAERI analysis and decay heat is successfully removed by natural circulation.