Loss of Core Cooling Test Without One Cooling Line in Vessel Cooling System (VCS) of High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR)

Abstract

In the High Temperature engineering Test Reactor (HTTR), the Vessel Cooling System (VCS) which is arranged around the reactor pressure vessel, removes residual heat and decay heat from the reactor core passively when the forced core cooling is lost. The test was carried out at the reactor thermal power of 9 MW, under the condition that the reactor power control system and the reactor inlet coolant temperature control system was isolated, and three helium gas circulators in the primary cooling system were stopped to simulate the loss of forced cooling flow in the core. Moreover, one cooling line of the VCS was stopped to simulate the partial loss of cooling function from the surface of the reactor pressure vessel. The test results showed that the reactor power immediately decreased to almost zero and was stable as soon as the helium gas circulators were stopped. The power decrease is caused by negative feedback effect of reactivity. On the other hand, temperature changes of core internal structures, the reactor pressure vessel and the biological shielding concrete were slowly during the test. The measured temperature of the reactor pressure vessel decreased for several degrees during the test. The measured temperature increase of biological shielding made of concrete was small within 1 °C. The numerical analysis showed that the temperature increase of VCS cooling tube was about 15°C which is sufficiently small, which did not significantly affect the temperature of biological shielding. As the results, it was confirmed that the cooling ability of VCS can be kept sufficiently even in case that one of two water cooling lines of VCS is lost.