Basic Experimental Study on Effectiveness of Nuclear Waste Long-Term Storage Containers With PAR for Reducing Concentration of Hydrogen Gas: Part 1 — Research Plan and Preliminary Simulation Results

Abstract

In the decommissioning of nuclear power plants, the long-term management of radioactive waste of fuel debris, etc. are necessary. In the process, hydrogen which is the flammable gas is generated by the decomposition of water by radiation. Therefore, it is important to ensure the safety of the waste storage container to reduce the concentration of hydrogen gas, and to keep below the explosion limit (4%). Consequently, a basic experiment to investigate the effectiveness of the waste storage container with the flammable gas concentration reduction mechanism using the passive autocatalytic recombiner (PAR) has been planned. The present study describes the research plan to use a small modeled experimental apparatus. In addition, in order to clarify quantitatively natural convection behavior of hydrogen gas due to the decay heat of radioactive materials in the long-term waste storage container, preliminary analyses were performed on the system of a small-scale experimental apparatus in which specification of the long-term radioactive waste storage container is simply simulated. From the present results, the perspective which can predict natural convection phenomena in the long-term waste storage container numerically was obtained.