Accident analysis on supercritical water-cooled reactor during design basis and beyond design-basis condition

Abstract

Supercritical water-cooled reactor (SCWR) is the only water-cooled reactor among six Generation IV reactor concepts. Safety analysis is one of the most important tasks for SCWR design. A typical thermal spectrum SCWR with passive safety system during design-basis accident (DBA) and beyond design-basis accident (BDBA) is performed. For DBA, reactor system is modeled based on a revised code ATHLET-SC. Loss of coolant accident is chosen to perform safety analysis and sensitive analysis. The results achieved demonstrate the feasibility of proposed passive cooling system to provide sufficient cooling. However, it should be noted that if one of safety systems fails to actuate during loss of coolant accident, although the likelihood is fairly low, there is potential risk of cladding failure. Consequently, the DBA will develop into the BDBA. For BDBA, a postulated severe accident is analyzed after melt pool is formed in the lower plenum. Heat transfer behavior in the melt pool as well as two-dimensional heat transfer effect in the lower head wall is discussed. Then, key parameters are chosen to perform parametric analysis. Results show that the safety margin to critical heat flux is significant. After considering two-dimensional heat conduction effect in the lower head, the safety margin could be further increased.