Coupled reactor physics and coolant dynamics of heavy-liquid-metal-coolant systems
Cooling of advanced nuclear designs with heavy liquid metals such as lead or lead-bismuth eutectic offers improved safety characteristics and higher operating efficiencies compared with previously considered liquid-metal coolants such as sodium or NaK. Such applications would, however, also introduce additional safety concerns and design challenges, therefore necessitating a verifiable computational tool for transient design-basis analysis of heavy-liquid-metal-coolant (HLMC) systems. This capability would enable analysts to compare operational and safety characteristics of design alternatives and to evaluate relative performance advantages with a consistent, deterministic measure. No existing computer code provides all the computational capabilities needed for system analysis of HLMC designs. However, the SASSYS-1 computer code, long used for analysis of sodium-cooled designs, has been adapted to provide a scoping reactor kinetics/thermal-hydraulics analysis capability and a framework for future development. Revision of the SASSYS-1 reactor kinetics, thermophysical properties, convective heat transfer, and flow momentum transfer models has permitted preliminary design and safety assessments of HLMC systems. Preliminary results are given here.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab., IL (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 20005829
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Vol. 81; Conference: American Nuclear Society 1999 Winter Meeting, Long Beach, CA (US), 11/14/1999--11/18/1999; Other Information: PBD: 1999; ISSN 0003-018X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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