• Title/Summary/Keyword: in-vessel cooling

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Evaluation of Pressure History due to Steam Explosion (증기폭발에 의한 압력이력 평가)

  • Kim, Seung Hyun;Chang, Yoon-Suk;Song, Sungchu;Hwang, Taesuk
    • Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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    • v.38 no.4
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    • pp.355-361
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    • 2014
  • Steam explosions can be caused by fuel-coolant interactions resulting from failure of the external vessel cooling system in a new nuclear power plant. This can threaten the integrity of structures, including the nuclear reactor and the containment building. In the present study, an improved technique for analyzing the steam explosion phenomenon was proposed on the basis of previous research and was verified by simulations involving alumina experiments. Also, the improved analysis technique was applied to determine the pressure history of the reactor cavity in accordance with postulated failure locations. The results of the analysis revealed that the effects of vessel side failure are more serious than those of vessel bottom failure, with approximately 70% higher maximum pressure.

Numerical Analysis of Single Phase Thermal Stratification in both Cold Legs and Downcomer by Emergency Core Cooling System Injection : A Study on the Necessity to Consider Buoyancy Force Term (비상노심냉각계통 주입에 따른 저온관 및 강수관에서 단상 열성층 수치해석 : 부력항 고려 필요성에 관한 연구)

  • Lee, Gong Hee;Cheong, Ae Ju
    • Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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    • v.29 no.12
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    • pp.654-662
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    • 2017
  • When emergency core cooling system (ECCS) is operated during loss of coolant accident (LOCA) in a pressurized water reactor (PWR), pressurized thermal shock (PTS) phenomenon can occur as cooling water is injected into a cold leg, mixed with hot primary coolant, and then entrained into a reactor vessel. Insufficient flow mixing may cause temperature stratification and steam condensation. In addition, flow vibration may cause thermal stresses in surrounding structures. This will reduce the life of the reactor vessel. Due to the importance of PTS phenomenon, in this study, calculation was performed for Test 1 among six types of OECD/NEA ROSA tests with ANSYS CFX R.17. Predicted results were then compared to measured data. Additionally, because temperature difference between the hot coolant at the inlet of the cold leg and the cold cooling water at the inlet of the ECCS injection line is 200 K or more, buoyancy force due to density difference might have significant effect on thermal-hydraulic characteristics of flow. Therefore, in this study, the necessity to include buoyancy force term in governing equations for accurate prediction of single phase thermal stratification in both cold legs and downcomer by ECCS injection was numerically studied.

Reactor Vessel Water Level Estimation During Severe Accidents Using Cascaded Fuzzy Neural Networks

  • Kim, Dong Yeong;Yoo, Kwae Hwan;Choi, Geon Pil;Back, Ju Hyun;Na, Man Gyun
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.48 no.3
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    • pp.702-710
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    • 2016
  • Global concern and interest in the safety of nuclear power plants have increased considerably since the Fukushima accident. In the event of a severe accident, the reactor vessel water level cannot be measured. The reactor vessel water level has a direct impact on confirming the safety of reactor core cooling. However, in the event of a severe accident, it may be possible to estimate the reactor vessel water level by employing other information. The cascaded fuzzy neural network (CFNN) model can be used to estimate the reactor vessel water level through the process of repeatedly adding fuzzy neural networks. The developed CFNN model was found to be sufficiently accurate for estimating the reactor vessel water level when the sensor performance had deteriorated. Therefore, the developed CFNN model can help provide effective information to operators in the event of a severe accident.

Numerical study of the flow and heat transfer characteristics in a scale model of the vessel cooling system for the HTTR

  • Tomasz Kwiatkowski;Michal Jedrzejczyk;Afaque Shams
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.56 no.4
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    • pp.1310-1319
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    • 2024
  • The reactor cavity cooling system (RCCS) is a passive reactor safety system commonly present in the designs of High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGR) that removes heat from the reactor pressure vessel by means of natural convection and radiation. It is one of the factors responsible for ensuring that the reactor does not melt down under any plausible accident scenario. For the simulation of accident scenarios, which are transient phenomena unfolding over a span of up to several days, intermediate fidelity methods and system codes must be employed to limit the models' execution time. These models can quantify radiation heat transfer well, but heat transfer caused by natural convection must be quantified with the use of correlations for the heat transfer coefficient. It is difficult to obtain reliable correlations for HTGR RCCS heat transfer coefficients experimentally due to such a system's size. They could, however, be obtained from high-fidelity steady-state simulations of RCCSs. The Rayleigh number in RCCSs is too high for using a Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) technique; thus, a Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approach must be employed. There are many RANS models, each performing best under different geometry and fluid flow conditions. To find the most suitable one for simulating an RCCS, the RANS models need to be validated. This work benchmarks various RANS models against three experiments performed on the HTTR RCCS Mockup by the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) in 1993. This facility is a 1/6 scale model of a vessel cooling system (VCS) for the High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR), which is operated by JAEA. Multiple RANS models were evaluated on a simplified 2d-axisymmetric geometry. They were found to reproduce the experimental temperature profiles with errors of up to 22% for the lowest temperature benchmark and 15% for the higher temperature benchmarks. The results highlight that the pragmatic turbulence models need to be validated for high Rayleigh natural convection-driven flows and improved accordingly, more publicly available experimental data of RCCS resembling experiments is needed and indicate that a 2d-axisymmetric geometry approximation is likely insufficient to capture all the relevant phenomena in RCCS simulations.

Effect of Top-Mounted ICI on Severe-Accident Mitigation (노내계측계통 상부탑재에 의한 중대사고 대처 영향)

  • Suh, Jungsoo;Kim, Han Gon
    • Transactions of the KSME C: Technology and Education
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    • v.3 no.3
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    • pp.209-215
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    • 2015
  • The effects of the mounting location of ICI cables on severe accident mitigation systems, specially IVR-ERVC (In-Vessel Retention by External Reactor Vessel Cooling) and core catcher (Ex-vessel corium retention and cooling system), are investigated. The effects of bottom-mounted ICI strategy on severe accident mitigation are summarized and advantages of top-mounted ICI to improve severe accident mitigation are also highlighted.

Failure simulation of nuclear pressure vessel under LBLOCA scenarios

  • Eui-Kyun Park;Jun-Won Park;Yun-Jae Kim;Kukhee Lim;Eung-Soo Kim
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.56 no.7
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    • pp.2859-2874
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    • 2024
  • This paper presents the finite element deformation and failure simulation of a typical Korean high-power reactor vessel under a severe accident characterized by large break loss of coolant (LBLOCA) with in-vessel retention of molten corium through external reactor vessel cooling (IVR-ERVC) conditions. Temperature distributions calculated using Modular Accident Analysis Program Version 5 (MAAP5) as thermal boundary conditions were used, and ABAQUS thermal and structural analyses were performed. After full ablation, the temperature of the inner surface in the thinnest section remained high (920 ℃), but the stress remained relatively low (less than 6 MPa). At the outer surface, the stress was as high as 250 MPa; however, the resulting plastic strain was small owing to the low temperature of 200 ℃. Variations in stress, inelastic strain, and temperature with time in the thinnest section suggest that the plastic and creep strains are saturated owing to stress relaxation, resulting in low cumulative damage. Thus, the lower head of the vessel can maintain its structural integrity under LBLOCA with IVR-ERVC conditions. The sensitivity analysis of internal pressure indicates the occurrence of failure in the thinnest section at an internal pressure >9.6 MPa via local necking followed by failure due to high stresses.

Commissioning result of the KSTAR in-vessel cryo-pump

  • Chang, Y.B.;Lee, H.J.;Park, Y.M.;Lee, Y.J.;Kwag, S.W.;Song, N.H.;Park, D.S.;Joo, J.J.;Moon, K.M.;Kim, N.W.;Yang, H.L.;Oh, Y.K.
    • Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
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    • v.15 no.4
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    • pp.53-58
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    • 2013
  • KSTAR in-vessel cryo-pump has been installed in the vacuum vessel top and bottom side with up-down symmetry for the better plasma density control in the D-shape H-mode. The cryogenic helium lines of the in-vessel cryo-pump are located at the vertical positions from the vacuum vessel torus center 2,000 mm. The inductive electrical potential has been optimized to reduce risk of electrical breakdown during plasma disruption. In-vessel cryo-pump consists of three parts of coaxial circular shape components; cryo-panel, thermal shield and particle shield. The cryo-panel is cooled down to below 4.5 K. The cryo-panel and thermal shields were made by Inconel 625 tube for higher mechanical strength. The thermal shields and their cooling tubes were annealed in air environment to improve the thermal radiation emissivity on the surface. Surface of cryo-panel was electro-polished to minimize the thermal radiation heat load. The in-vessel cryo-pump was pre-assembled on a test bed in 180 degree segment base. The leak test was carried out after the thermal shock between room temperature to $LN_2$ one before installing them into vacuum vessel. Two segments were welded together in the vacuum vessel and final leak test was performed after the thermal shock. Commissioning of the in-vessel cryo-pump was carried out using a temporary liquid helium supply system.