A FLOW AND PRESSURE DISTRIBUTION OF APR+ REACTOR UNDER THE 4-PUMP RUNNING CONDITIONS WITH A BALANCED FLOW RATE

Abstract

In order to quantify the flow distribution characteristics of APR+ reactor, a test was performed on a test facility, ACOP (APR+ Core Flow & Pressure Test Facility), having a length scale of 1/5 referring to the prototype plant. The major parameters are core inlet flow and outlet pressure distribution and sectional pressure drops along the major flow path inside reactor vessel. To preserve the flow characteristics of prototype plant, the test facility was designed based on a preservation of major flow path geometry. An Euler number is considered as primary dimensionless parameter, which is conserved with a 1/40.9 of Reynolds number scaling ratio. ACOP simplifies each fuel assembly into a hydraulic simulator having the same axial flow resistance and lateral cross flow characteristics. In order to supply boundary condition to estimate thermal margins of the reactor, the distribution of inlet core flow and core exit pressure were measured in each of 257 fuel assembly simulators. In total, 584 points of static pressure and differential pressures were measured with a limited number of differential pressure transmitters by developing a sequential operation system of valves. In the current study, reactor flow characteristics under the balanced fourcold leg flow conditions at each of the cold legs were quantified, which is a part of the test matrix composing the APR+ flow distribution test program. The final identification of the reactor flow distribution was obtained by ensemble averaging 15 independent test data. The details of the design of the test facility, experiment, and data analysis are included in the current paper.