Theoretical study of hydraulic jump during circular horizontal hot leg injection in pressurized water reactor

Abstract

One important phenomenon occurring during Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) is Counter-Current Flow Limitation (CCFL). The incidence of such CCFL is introduced by the onset of hydraulic jump. In the present work, a one dimensional model was modified to fit circular hot channel. The model was used to study the factors affecting the initial Froude number, the location of the occurrence of the hydraulic jump, and the critical coolant flow depth during circular horizontal hot leg injection in US-APWR Mitsubishi Reactor. The results showed good agreement with published experimental data of the Upper Plenum Test Facility (UPTF) at Mannheim, Germany. It was found that higher injected coolant mass flow rate increases the initial Froude number, the location of the occurrence of the hydraulic jump, and the critical injection depth divided by the diameter of the injection pipe. Such behavior is thought to be due to the increase of the inertia force by increasing of the injected coolant mass flow rate and the inverse of the diameter of the injection pipe. It was found also that, the location of the occurrence of hydraulic jump increases with decreasing load effect. Therefore, these results reveal that the avoidance of CCFL as well as hydraulic jump through hot leg at maximum load can be achieved by decreasing the distance between the injection point and the pressure vessel to below 0.3m, and with diameter of 4in (10.16cm) as the design diameter of the injection pipe in US-APWR Mitsubishi Reactor. Moreover, the maximum critical depth (56cm) is less than the diameter of the hot leg (78.74cm) at an injected coolant mass flow of 400kg/s, and with diameter of 4in (10.16cm) as the design diameter of the injection pipe in US-APWR Mitsubishi Reactor; such result assure that there is no flow blockage in the hot leg yet.