Experimental Demonstration of Flow Diodes Applicable to a Passive Decay Heat Removal System for Sodium-Cooled Reactors

概要

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In remote areas, a small power source with a capacity less than 50 MW electricity without refueling is attractive since fuel transfer cost is high. In a previous 50 MW sodium-cooled reactor study, a concept with a long-life core and a simple plant system without refueling was proposed. The 50 MW plant decay heat removal system adopts direct reactor auxiliary cooling systems (DRACSs). To enhance passive safety features, the 50 MW plant DRACSs adopt flow diodes instead of valves which need active signals to become activated. In this study, two full-scale flow diode models, Types A and B, were manufactured and water tests were conducted. The Type A flow diode is a conventional vortex flow diode and Type B is a modified vortex flow diode which provides easy maintenance. Under the test condition, the former showed good performance while the latter lacked sufficient performance. Then, flow diodes for the 50 MW plant DRACSs were designed according to the experimental results. An optimized Type A flow diode and a modified Type B flow diode were evaluated and found to meet requirements of natural convection decay heat removal operation while maintaining a sufficient lowbypass flow during normal power operation.
2009-04-01