An experimental study on the validation of cooling capability for the Passive Auxiliary Feedwater System (PAFS) condensation heat exchanger

Abstract

The Passive Auxiliary Feedwater System (PAFS) is one of the advanced safety features adopted in the Advanced Power Reactor Plus (APR+). PAFS is designed to replace a conventional active Auxiliary Feedwater System (AFWS). The PAFS cools down the steam generator secondary side and eventually removes the decay heat from the reactor core by a natural circulation mechanism, i.e., condensing steam in nearly horizontal U-tubes submerged inside a pool. A separate effect test facility was constructed with the aim of validating the cooling and operational performance of the PAFS. The PAFS Condensing Heat Removal Assessment Loop (PASCAL) was constructed by simulating a single Passive Condensation Heat Exchanger (PCHX) tube submerged in the Passive Condensation Cooling Tank (PCCT) according to the volumetric scaling methodology. Quasi-steady state (SS) test cases and PCCT level decrease (PL) were sequentially performed with the steam generator heater power set at 540kW to investigate the thermal-hydraulic behavior of the PAFS system and the characteristics of the natural circulation in the loop. The experimental results proved that the current PCHX design satisfied the heat removal requirement for cooling down the reactor core during an accident condition. Therefore, the PAFS can replace a conventional active AFWS in the APR+ by utilizing the two-phase natural circulation flow. The Multi-dimensional Analysis of Reactor Safety, KINS Standard Version (MARS-KS), a thermal hydraulic system analysis code, was utilized to validate the present experimental data. The results of the MARS-KS code provided a conservative prediction of the heat transfer phenomena for the PCHX cooling performance.