Description of Typical Flow Instabilities in the Natural Circulation System

Conference · Mon Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2002

OSTI ID:21072822

Jiang, Shengyao; Yang, Xingtuan; Zhang, Youjie ^[1]

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1. Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084 (China)

The experiments were performed on the test loop HRTL-5, which simulates geometry and system design of the 5-MW Nuclear Heating Reactor developed by the Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology, Tsinghua University. Because of the difference of the geometry design and operating conditions between the heating reactor and the boiling water reactor, the flow behavior presents great differences too, some of which haven't been deeply studied so far. Results show that in heating reactor, sub-cooled boiling, condensation and flashing play an important role on the flow instabilities of the natural circulation system. Correspondingly, geysering instability, flashing instability, and flow excursion are the very typical instabilities occurring in the primary loop of HRTL-5, which are different from those in boiling water reactor conditions. The compressibility of the steam space on the top of the primary loop has also great influence on the instability of the natural circulation system. (authors)

• Research Organization: The ASME Foundation, Inc., Three Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016-5990 (United States)
• OSTI ID: 21072822
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
BOILING
BWR TYPE REACTORS
COMPRESSIBILITY
DESIGN
EXCURSIONS
FLASHING
GEOMETRY
HEATING
INSTABILITY
NATURAL CONVECTION
NUCLEAR ENERGY
STEAM