Inherent safety advantages of carbide fuel systems and technical issues regarding natural convection in LMRs

Technical Report · Wed Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1984

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/106601· OSTI ID:106601

Barthold, W P ^[1]

---

1. Barthold and Associates, Inc., Albuquerque, NM (United States)

The scope of work is to summarize inherent safety advantages that are unique to the use of a carbide based fuel system and to summarize the technical issues regarding natural convection flow in LMFBR cores. As discussed in this report, carbide fuel provides the designer with far greater flexibility than oxide fuel. Carbide fuel systems can be designed to eliminate major accident initiators. They turn quantitative advantages into a qualitative advantage. The author proposed to LANL a series of core design and component concepts that would greatly enhance the safety of carbide over oxide systems. This report cites a series of safety advantages which potentially exist for a carbide fuel system. Natural convection issues have not been given much attention in the past. Only during the last few years has this issue been addressed in some detail. Despite claims to the contrary by some of the LMR contractors, the author does not think that the natural convection phenomena is fully understood. Some of the approximations made in natural convection transient analyses have probably a greater impact on calculated transient temperatures than the effects under investigation. Only integral in-pile experimental data and single assembly out-of-pile detailed data are available for comparisons with analytical models and correlations. Especially for derated cores, the natural convection capability of a LMR should be far superior to that of a LWR. The author ranks the natural convection capability of the LMR as the most important inherent safety feature.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States); Barthold and Associates, Inc., Albuquerque, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States); Department of Defense, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 106601
• Report Number(s): LA-SUB--95-151; ON: DE95017810
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
DOPPLER COEFFICIENT
LMFBR TYPE REACTORS
MIXED CARBIDE FUELS
NATURAL CONVECTION
NUCLEAR FUELS
REACTOR COOLING SYSTEMS
REACTOR CORES
REACTOR SAFETY
REACTOR SAFETY EXPERIMENTS
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
STRATIFICATION
TWO-PHASE FLOW
VOID COEFFICIENT