Prevention and mitigation of severe accident developments and recriticalities in advanced fast reactor systems

Abstract

GEN-IV nuclear systems, especially advanced sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) are on the horizon and a key issue of their success is the promise of a higher and improved safety level. In Europe safety investigations are currently under way e.g. in the collaborative CP-ESFR project of the EU. Both on the prevention and mitigation side significant efforts are invested to fulfill the high safety goals. One route of assurance concentrates on the mitigation or even elimination of specific severe accident routes leading to core disruption and recriticalities. The accident phase with larger disrupted and molten fuel regions is coined the transition phase. A competition between fuel losses and in-pool material motion exists deciding over recriticalities and energetics potentials in this phase. To get a control of the transition phase recriticalities and energetics, ideas have been developed to install dedicated means in the core that enhance and guarantee a sufficient and timely fuel discharge - a controlled material relocation (CMR). Several proposals are under way to accomplish this CMR and especially in Japan significant theoretical and experimental work has been performed. In Europe the path to develop CMR measures was driven in the past by the development of the CAPRA reactors with a high Pu enrichment. In the current paper the status of analyses is described and some new concepts are discussed. The CMR measures are discussed along two accident scenarios, the unprotected loss of flow (ULOF) and the instantaneous blockage accident (TIB).