Significance of coast down time on safety and availability of a pool type fast breeder reactor

Abstract

Plant dynamic investigation towards establishing the influence of flow coast down time of primary and secondary sodium systems on safety and availability of plant has been carried out based on one dimensional analysis. From safety considerations, a minimum flow coast down time for primary sodium circuit is essential to be provided to limit the consequences of loss of flow event within allowable limits. Apart from safety benefits, large primary coast down time also improves plant availability by the elimination of reactor SCRAM during short term power failure events. Threshold values of SCRAM parameters also need optimization. By suitably selecting the threshold values for SCRAM parameters, significant reduction in the inertia of pumping systems can be derived to obtain desirable results on plant availability. With the optimization of threshold values and primary flow coast down behaviour equivalent to a halving time of 8s, there is a possibility to eliminate reactor SCRAM during short term power failure events extending up to 0.75s duration. Benefits of secondary flow halving on reducing transient thermal loading on components have also been investigated and mixed effects have been observed.