Preliminary Study on HTR-10 Operating in Higher Outlet Temperature

Abstract

High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR), which has well-known safety features and high temperature heat supply capability, is expected to be widely used for heat supply and technology heat utilization including the hydrogen production, and so contributing to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in various sectors. The 10 MW High Temperature gas-cooled test Reactor (HTR-10) had been constructed and operated in China as a pilot plant to demonstrate the inherent safety features of the modular HTGR. The first criticality of HTR-10 at air condition was realized on December 1, 2000, and the full power operation for 72 h on January 29, 2003. Supported by Chinese National S&T Major Project, HTGR for hydrogen production are now being studied. The physical and thermal hydraulic design to raise the outlet helium temperature of the HTR-10 reactor core from 700 °C to 850~1000 °C is carried out. In this paper, the preliminary thermal hydraulic design of the HTR- 10 with the outlet helium temperature of 950 °C (HTR-10H) is introduced. The power density distribution, the fuel temperature distribution and the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) temperature are studied to identify what need to be focused on next. Besides, the typical DLOFC accident has been studied to evaluate the safety feature of the HTR-10 operating under higher core temperature and outlet temperature. The preliminary results show that, operated at the higher outlet helium temperature, the original acceptance criteria for HTR-10 will be challenged. In the future, the design optimization, as well as the possible modification of these acceptance criteria, which were set more than two decades ago, should be studied based on the current knowledge of the fuel element properties and structure material properties.