Fuel Plate Surface Temperature in a Fully-Uncovered Fuel Assembly after a Loss-of-Coolant Accident in an MTR-Type Research Reactor
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
A methodology and model that were developed in the 1960s for calculating the peak fuel temperature in an MTR fuel assembly in a reactor core that has been fully-uncovered in a hypothetical loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) are revived and updated in this report. The semi-empirical one-node model is based on experiments on fuel elements for the Oak Ridge Research Reactor (ORR) and the Low Intensity Testing Reactor (LITR) that were done in the 1950s and 1960s at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The peak plate temperature in 18 LOCA tests in the ORR and two of 24 tests in the LITR, calculated using the model, are compared with experiments. The original model was used in LOCA analyses for the Omega West Reactor (OWR) at Los Alamos National Laboratory with HEU fuel and for three cores of the University of Virginia Reactor (UVAR) with both HEU and LEU fuels. The LOCA analyses for UVAR using this model were accepted for licensing purposes by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an assembly containing 12 HEU fuel plates in 1970, an assembly containing 18 HEU fuel plates in 1984, and an assembly containing 22 LEU silicide fuel plates in 1994. The analyses done for the OWR and UVAR are repeated here and compared with data in the original reports in order to establish the validity of the model revived in this report. The model is then used in a subsequent LOCA analysis for the HEU and LEU cores of the RPI MTR-type reactor in Portugal. It can also be applied to other MTR-type reactors with designs similar to the LITR.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 1600698
- Report Number(s):
- ANL/RERTR/TM-06/01; 158456; TRN: US2102816
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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