Analysis on the Rotary Inertial of the Primary Pump for China Advanced Research Reactor

Abstract

The rotary inertia of the reactor’s primary pump is an important factor related to the reactor’s safety under some accidental conditions. If the rotary inertia of the primary pump is big, that the pump’s inertia time will be long and the coolant mass flow rate will decrease slowly. So it is helpful to remove the residual heat and enhance the safety of the reactor. On the other hand, a bigger rotary inertia increases the cost, and causes some other inconvenience. In this paper, our research object is China Advanced Research Reactor (CARR) which is under construction. Systemic mathematical and physical models were set up and a program was developed using FORTRAN language with GEAR numerical method to analyze the transient of CARR. The primary thermal-hydraulic parameters of the reactor core were obtained in case of loss of power accident under different rotary inertia of the pump. These parameters include the temperature of the coolant the clad and the fuel, the maximal quality of the reactor core and MDNBR, etc. On the basis of the calculate result, it can be found that when the rotary inertia of the pump is larger than 150 Kg·m2, all of the thermal parameters in loss of power accident meet the safety requirement. And if the rotary inertia of the pump is 450 Kg·m2 which is the design value of CARR, the delay shutdown time in loss of power accident must not exceed 20 seconds.