Development of Inherently Safe Technologies for Large Scale BWRs: (2) Passive Water-Cooling System

Abstract

Working from the lessons of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, we have been developing the following various safe technologies for boiling water reactors (BWRs), a passive water-cooling system, an infinite-time air-cooling system, a hydrogen explosion prevention system, and an operation support system for reactor accidents. The objective of the study reported here was development of the passive water-cooling system. The above technologies are referred to as ‘Inherently Safe Technology’. The passive water-cooling system works without electricity for the first 10 days after an event to remove a relatively large mount of decay heat from the core. The system consists of a condenser and a steam turbine-driven pump for transferring water from a suppression pool to the reactor. Steam from the reactor pressure vessel is condensed in the condensation tubes of the condenser, and the condensate flows out into the suppression pool in the primary containment vessel (PCV). The water temperature at the condensation tube outlet is lowered to less than the saturated temperature at the partial steam pressure of the maximum PCV design pressure to prevent the PCV failure. The condenser is located at a lower level, e.g., underground, for easier access and for supplying cooling water to a condenser pool without electricity during an event. The lower level condenser pool has an advantage that it can be seismically designed. To evaluate our concept of the water-cooling system, heat transfer tests were conducted using full-scale U-shaped single tubes with three diameter sizes under a wide range of pressure and inlet steam velocity conditions. The heat transfer data were obtained at system pressures of 0.2 to 3.0 MPa (absolute) and inlet steam velocities of 5 to 56 m/s. The heat transfer data with this wide range of pressure and inlet velocity conditions include thermal hydraulics conditions for a passive containment cooling system (PCCS) and some of the data can be extrapolated to isolation condenser (IC) conditions. We also confirmed thermal hydraulics conditions to determine the practicality of our new concept.

Numerical study by large-eddy simulation on effects and mechanism of air-cooling enhancing technologies

“…Gases were released to the atmosphere according to the designed vent procedure to prevent the PCV failure. Learning from the lessons of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station incident, we have been developing the following inherent safe technologies for boiling water reactors (BWRs) [2]: a passive watercooling system [3], an air-cooling system [4], a hydrogen explosion prevention system [5] and an operation support system for reactor accidents [6]. In this research, we have focused on the development of the air-cooling system.…”