Unprotected Loss of Flow Accident in Small Long Life Gas Cooled Fast Reactor

Abstract

In post Fukushima nuclear accidents inherent safety capability is necessary against some standard accidents such as unprotected loss of flow (ULOF), unprotected rod run-out transient over power (UTOP), unprotected loss of heat sink (ULOHS). Gas cooled fast reactors is one of the important candidate of 4th generation nuclear power plant and in this paper the safety analysis related to unprotected loss of flow in small long life gas cooled fast reactors has been performed. Accident analysis of unprotected loss of flow include coupled neutronic and thermal hydraulic analysis which include adiabatic model in nodal approach of time dependent multigroup diffusion equations. The thermal hydraulic model include transient model in the core, steam generator, and related systems. Natural circulation based heat removal system is important to ensure inherent safety capability during unprotected accidents. Therefore the system similar to RVACS (reactor vessel auxiliary cooling system) is investigated. As the results some simulations for small 60 MWt gas cooled fast reactors has been performed and the results show that the reactor can anticipate complete pumping failure inherently by reducing power through reactivity feedback and remove the rest of heat through natural circulations.