• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.434-442
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• 2015

The advanced passive pressurized water reactor (PWR) is being constructed in China and the passive residual heat removal (PRHR) system was designed to remove the decay heat. During accident scenarios with increase of heat removal from the primary coolant system, the actuation of the PRHR will enhance the cooldown of the primary coolant system. There is a risk of power excursion during the cooldown of the primary coolant system. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the thermal hydraulic behavior of the reactor coolant system (RCS) at this condition. The advanced passive PWR model, including major components in the RCS, is built by SCDAP/RELAP5 code. The thermal hydraulic behavior of the core is studied for two typical accident sequences with PRHR actuation to investigate the core cooling capability with conservative assumptions, a main steam line break (MSLB) event and inadvertent opening of a steam generator (SG) safety valve event. The results show that the core is ultimately shut down by the boric acid solution delivered by Core Makeup Tank (CMT) injections. The effects of CMT boric acid concentration and the activation delay time on accident consequences are analyzed for MSLB, which shows that there is no consequential damage to the fuel or reactor coolant system in the selected conditions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.185-194
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• 2006

Transient operations for an integral type reactor, SMART-P, have been experimentally investigated using a thermal-hydraulic integral test facility, VISTA (Experimental Verification by Integral Simulation of Transients and Accidents), in order to verify the system design and performance of the SMART-P, a pilot plant of SMART. The VISTA facility was subjected to various accident conditions such as feedwater increase and decrease, loss of coolant flow, and control rod withdrawal accidents in order to elucidate the thermal-hydraulic responses following such accidents and finally to verify the system design of the SMARTP. Full functional control logics have been implemented in the VISTA facility in order to control the required control action for an accident simulation. As one of the sensitivity tests to verify the PRHRS performance, the effects of the initial water level in the compensation tank are experimentally investigated. When the initial water level is 16%, the water is quickly drained and nitrogen gas is then introduced into the PRHR system, resulting in deterioration of the PRHRS performance. It is thus found that nitrogen ingression should be prevented to ensure stable PRHRS operation.