Experimental and design experience with passive safety features of liquid metal reactors

Conference · Wed Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1992

OSTI ID:10178559

Lucoff, D M; Waltar, A E ^[1]; Sackett, J I ^[2]; Aizawa, K ^[3]

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1. Westinghouse Hanford Co., Richland, WA (United States)
2. Argonne National Lab., IL (United States)
3. Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp., Tokyo (Japan)

Liquid metal cooled reactors (LMRs) have already been demonstrated to be robust machines. Many reactor designers now believe that it is possible to include in this technology sufficient passive safety that LMRs would be able to survive loss of flow, loss of heat sink, and transient overpower events, even if the plant protective system fails completely--and do so without damage to the core. Early whole-core testing in Rapsodie, EBR-II, and FFTF indicate such designs may be possible. The operational safety testing program in EBR-II is demonstrating benign response of the reactor to a full range on controls failures. But additional testing is needed if transient core structural response under major accident conditions is to be properly understood. The proposed international Phase IIB passive safety tests in FFTF, being designed with a particular emphasis on providing data to understand core bowing extremes, and further tests planned in EBR-II with processed IFR fuel should provide a substantial and unique database for validating the computer codes being used to simulate postulated accident conditions.

• Research Organization: Westinghouse Hanford Co., Richland, WA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: AC06-87RL10930
• OSTI ID: 10178559
• Report Number(s): WHC-SA--1477; CONF-921003--7; ON: DE92040495
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
210500
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
220900
EBR-2 REACTOR
FAILURES
FFTF REACTOR
LMFBR TYPE REACTORS
LOSS OF FLOW
POWER REACTORS
BREEDING
RAPSODIE REACTOR
REACTOR SAFETY
TESTING
TRANSIENTS