Structural Integrity of ESBWR Primary Containment for 60-Years of Thermal Duty Cycle Operations
- ANATECH Corp. San Diego, CA (United States)
- G.E. Energy, San Jose, CA (United States)
GE's latest evolution of the boiling water reactor, the ESBWR, has innovative passive design features that reduce the number and complexity of active systems, which in turn provide economic advantages while also increasing safety. To incorporate these passive cooling features, the Isolation Condenser Passive Cooling Containment System Pools (IC/PCCS) are integrated onto the top slab of the primary containment structure. The top slab spans the 36-meter diameter containment drywell with a central 10.5-meter diameter opening for the drywell head while supporting the water and equipment in these upper pools. The walls of the upper pools along with the refueling floor slab over the pools are designed as a deep beam girder as part of the structural system of the top slab. During normal operations, the Isolation Condenser (IC) pool will undergo duty cycles where the water gets rapidly heated to boiling for some period of time and then cools back down. This top slab structural system is subjected to the elevated temperatures that occur in the IC pools and to thermal cycling due to temperature changes in the pools and in the drywell portion of the containment during shutdowns. These cyclic thermal demands interact with a changing structural condition because of concrete cracking, creep, and property degradation at elevated temperatures. Thus, there is a potential for structural ratcheting of the slab that would be manifested by continually increasing deformations over time under the thermal cycling while supporting the pool loads. The long-term structural integrity of the top slab as a containment boundary must be verified for this duty cycle operation over the 60-year design life. (authors)
- Research Organization:
- American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 21021163
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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