Numerical analysis of hydrogen risk mitigation measures for support of ITER licensing

Abstract

In the ITER wet bypass scenario, water leakage, air ingress and hot dust (Be, W, and C) in the vacuum vessel could generate combustible hydrogen–air–steam mixture. Hydrogen combustion may threaten the integrity of the ITER VV and lead to radioactivity release. To prevent hydrogen energetic combustion, nitrogen injection system in VV and hydrogen recombination system in the pressure suppression tank (ST) were proposed. The main objectives of this analysis are to study the distribution of hydrogen–air–steam mixtures in the ITER sub-volumes, to investigate the feasibility of the nitrogen injection system to fully inert the atmosphere in the VV and to evaluate the capability and efficiency of the hydrogen recombination system to remove hydrogen in the ST. 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code GASFLOW was used to calculate the evolution of the mixtures and to evaluate the hydrogen combustion risks in the ITER sub-volumes. The results indicate that the proposed hydrogen risk mitigation systems will generally prevent the risks of hydrogen detonation and fast deflagration. However, the atmosphere in ITER sub-volumes cannot be completely inerted at the early stage of the scenario. Slow deflagrations could still generate quasi-static pressures above 1 bar in the VV. The structural impact of the thermal and pressure loads generated by hydrogen combustions will be investigated in future studies.