Safety-related equipment survival in hydrogen burns in large dry PWR (pressurized water reactor) containment buildings

Technical Report · Tue Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1988

OSTI ID:5049373

King, D B; Nicolette, V F; Dandini, V J; Spletzer, B L

Studies of the threat to safety-related equipment posed by hydrogen burns in both large dry atmospheric and subatmospheric PWR containment buildings have been conducted at Sandia National Laboratories. These studies have taken the form of analyses and experiments. Analyses for an atmospheric large dry containmnet used a model of the Three Mile Island containment building. The subatmospheric analyses studied the Surry Nuclear Power Plant. Both analyses used hydrogen source terms as calculated by the March code. The HECTR computer code was used to analyze hydrogen transport and combustion and their effects on heat transfer models of a pressure transmitter. A series of experiments was conducted to study the survivability of both aged and unaged nuclear qualified cable and pressure transmitters in a simulated LOCA and hydrogen burn environment. All test specimens survived the single hydrogen burn test environments. However, in the multiple burn tests, the cable specimens and pressure transmitter did not survive the environments. In conclusion, single hydrogen burns throughout large dry containments do not appear to pose a serious threat to the safety equipment studied in this report. However, a dilemma occurs when considering the effect of igniter-induced multiple burns in large dry containments. Analyses indicate that the absence of igniters (no combustion) can result in potentially detonable mixtures for both the atmospheric and subatmospheric containments. But with the igniter use, both analyses and experiments indicate that the multiple burn environment can pose a threat to safety equipment.

• Research Organization: Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC (USA). Div. of Engineering
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-76DP00789
• OSTI ID: 5049373
• Report Number(s): NUREG/CR-4763; SAND-86-2280; ON: TI88008527
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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