Uncertainties in inherent shutdown of generic unprotected loss-of-flow and transient overpower events in innovative designs
The uncertainty in predicting the effectiveness of inherent shutdown in innovative liquid metal cooled reactors with metallic fuel results from three broad contributing areas of uncertainty: (1) the inability to exactly predict the frequency of ATMS events with, potential to challenge the safety systems and require inherent shutdown; (2) the approximation of representing all such events by a selected set of "generic scenarios;" and (3) the inability to exactly calculate the core response to the selected generic scenarios. This report discusses the work being done to address each of these contributing areas, identifies the design and research approaches being used at Argonne National Laboratory to reducing the key contributions to uncertainties in inherent shutdown, and presents results. The probabilities of achieving temperatures capable of defeating inherent shutdown are shown to range from ~0.1% to negligible for current designs.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 713938
- Report Number(s):
- ANL-IFR-80; 154310
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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