An investigation of RVACS (reactor vessel auxiliary cooling system) design improvements

Conference · Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 EST 1989 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States)

OSTI ID:5478071

Tzanos, C P; Tessier, J H; Pedersen, D R ^[1]

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1. Argonne National Laboratory, IL (USA)

One of the main safety features of the current liquid-metal reactor (LMR) designs is the utilization of decay heat removal systems that remove heat by natural convection. In the reactor vessel auxiliary cooling system (RVACS), decay heat is removed by naturally circulating air in the gap between the guard vessel and a baffle wall surrounding the guard vessel. The objective of this work was to determine the impact of a number of design parameters on the performance of the RVACS of a pool LMR. These parameters were (a) the stack height, (b) the size of the airflow gap, (c) the system pressure loss, (d) fins on the guard vessel or the baffle wall, and (e) roughness (in the form of repeated ribs) on the airflow channel walls. Reactor designs ranging from 400 to 3,500 MW(thermal) were considered. From the RVACS design parameters considered in this analysis, an optimized ribbed configuration gave the best improvement in RVACS performance. For a 3,500-MW(thermal) LMR, the peak sodium and cladding temperatures were reduced by 52 K.

• OSTI ID: 5478071
• Report Number(s): CONF-891103-; CODEN: TANSA
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States), Vol. 60; Conference: Winter meeting of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and nuclear power and technology exhibit, San Francisco, CA (United States), 26-30 Nov 1989; ISSN 0003-018X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
AFTER-HEAT REMOVAL
NATURAL CONVECTION
LIQUID METAL COOLED REACTORS
BAFFLES
DESIGN
ENGINEERED SAFETY SYSTEMS
OPTIMIZATION
PERFORMANCE
PLANNING
REACTOR OPERATION
REACTOR VESSELS
RHR SYSTEMS
ROUGHNESS
S CODES
SCRAM
SODIUM
TRANSIENTS
ALKALI METALS
COMPUTER CODES
CONTAINERS
CONTROL EQUIPMENT
CONVECTION
COOLING SYSTEMS
ELEMENTS
ENERGY SYSTEMS
ENERGY TRANSFER
EQUIPMENT
FLOW REGULATORS
HEAT TRANSFER
MASS TRANSFER
METALS
OPERATION
REACTOR COMPONENTS
REACTOR COOLING SYSTEMS
REACTOR SHUTDOWN
REACTORS
REMOVAL
SHUTDOWN
SURFACE PROPERTIES
220900* - Nuclear Reactor Technology- Reactor Safety
210500 - Power Reactors
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