TY - GEN
T1 - DEVELOPMENT OF A PASSIVE REACTOR SHUTDOWN DEVICE TO PREVENT CORE DISRUPTIVE ACCIDENTS IN FAST REACTORS
T2 - 2022 29th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering, ICONE 2022
AU - Morita, Koji
AU - Liu, Wei
AU - Arima, Tatsumi
AU - Sato, Isamu
AU - Matsuura, Haruaki
AU - Sekio, Yoshihiro
AU - Arita, Yuji
AU - Sagara, Hiroshi
AU - Kawashima, Masatoshi
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Innovative Nuclear Research and Development Program in Japan. Special thanks to Dr. Yasushi Tsuboi of Toshiba Energy Systems & Solution Corp. We are deeply grateful to Dr. Hiroshi Endo for collaboration during the early stages of this work.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 by ASME.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - A new subassembly-type passive reactor shutdown device is proposed to expand the diversity and robustness of core disruptive accident prevention measures for sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). The device contains pins with a fuel material that is in a solid state during normal operation but melts and fluidizes during an unprotected loss of flow (ULOF) or unprotected transient overpower (UTOP) accident. By rapidly transferring the liquefied device fuel into the lower plenum region of the pins via gravitation alone, the device can passively provide a large negative reactivity to the core. In this study, the nuclear and thermal properties of the device subassembly with metallic fuel were evaluated to determine the basic device specifications for proper device operation during ULOF and UTOP accidents. The results of the transient analysis of the ULOF initiating phase in a 750-MWe-class MOX-fueled SFR core showed that a conventional homogeneous core can maintain stable cooling of the core prior to coolant boiling in the driver fuel subassemblies. On the other hand, the negative reactivity required to terminate the event by device operation was found to be slightly larger in the low sodium void reactivity core than in the conventional homogeneous core.
AB - A new subassembly-type passive reactor shutdown device is proposed to expand the diversity and robustness of core disruptive accident prevention measures for sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). The device contains pins with a fuel material that is in a solid state during normal operation but melts and fluidizes during an unprotected loss of flow (ULOF) or unprotected transient overpower (UTOP) accident. By rapidly transferring the liquefied device fuel into the lower plenum region of the pins via gravitation alone, the device can passively provide a large negative reactivity to the core. In this study, the nuclear and thermal properties of the device subassembly with metallic fuel were evaluated to determine the basic device specifications for proper device operation during ULOF and UTOP accidents. The results of the transient analysis of the ULOF initiating phase in a 750-MWe-class MOX-fueled SFR core showed that a conventional homogeneous core can maintain stable cooling of the core prior to coolant boiling in the driver fuel subassemblies. On the other hand, the negative reactivity required to terminate the event by device operation was found to be slightly larger in the low sodium void reactivity core than in the conventional homogeneous core.
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U2 - 10.1115/ICONE29-91812
DO - 10.1115/ICONE29-91812
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85143198860
SN - 9784888982566
T3 - International Conference on Nuclear Engineering, Proceedings, ICONE
BT - SMRs, Advanced Reactors, and Fusion
PB - American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
Y2 - 8 August 2022 through 12 August 2022
ER -