Preliminary Investigation of an Optimally Scramming Control Rod for Gas-Cooled Reactors

Conference · Mon Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2002

OSTI ID:21072888

Ougouag, Abderrafi M; Schultz, Richard R; Terry, William K ^[1]; Stephens, Alan G ^[2]

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1. INEEL - Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID 83415 (United States)
2. Idaho State University, 921 South 8th Avenue, Pocatello, Idaho 83209 (United States)

A passively safe control rod for gas-cooled reactors is proposed. This Optimally Scramming Control Rod (OSCR) is lifted out of the core region by the core coolant and descends back into the core when the coolant flow is not sufficient for core cooling purposes or in the event of depressurization. It is shown that for the current design of the OSCR, the reactor can be operated under normal lower power conditions down to about 80% of total power. It is also shown that cold shutdown can be achieved with rods of sufficiently low mass to allow naturally passive operation of the concept. (authors)

• Research Organization: The ASME Foundation, Inc., Three Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5990 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 21072888
• Resource Relation: Conference: ICONE-10: 10. international conference on nuclear engineering, Arlington - Virginia (United States), 14-18 Apr 2002; Other Information: Country of input: France
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
CONTROL ELEMENTS
COOLANTS
COOLING
CURRENTS
DEPRESSURIZATION
DESIGN
GAS COOLED REACTORS
MASS
OPERATION
REACTOR CORES
RODS
SHUTDOWN