Research on the influence of nonuniform inflow on steady-state hydraulic performance of reactor coolant pump

Abstract

Reactor coolant pump (RCP) is one of the most important equipment in the reactor, its safety and reliability is quite important to the nuclear safety. In Advanced Passive (AP) series reactors, the RCPs are directly connected with the lower chamber of steam generator (SG), while other reactors would add a long straight pipe section in front of the RCP inlet. This design is beneficial for simplifying system and reducing pipe resistance, but would also make the inflow condition of pump inlet more complex, which would bring some influences on the hydraulic performance of RCP. In this work, a high-accuracy experimental and measuring system is established to investigate the influence of nonuniform inflow on steady-state hydraulic performance of RCP. A numerical study is also presented to validate the experimental results and influence mechanism. As a result, it was found that nonuniform inflow have a significant impact on head, power and efficiency of the RCP, the influence mechanism is also discussed in this paper.