ATF Transient Prescription Tests in TREAT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Transient Reactor Test facility (TREAT) was constructed in the late 1950’s and provided thousands of transient irradiations before being placed in standby mode in 1994. In 2017, it resumed operation in order to reclaim its crucial role in nuclear-heated safety research. TREAT is a transient reactor where inherently-safe core physics, a nimble transient rod drive system, and a philosophy of continual facility improvement work together to enable flexible power maneuvers for fuel safety research. While the facility’s flexible design and multi-mission nature saw historic experiments for numerous transient types, TREAT was not specifically adapted to optimize or demonstrate its full performance capability for Light Water Reactor (LWR) postulated accidents including Hot Zero Power Reactivity Initiated Accidents (HZP-RIA) and Loss of Coolant Accidents (LOCA). The physics of HZP-RIA drive very brief pulses with fairly large energy excursions. TREAT is currently capable of approaching HZP-RIA pulse widths through transients initiated on a large step insertion of reactivity and terminated shortly thereafter by rapid re-insertion of the transient rods (“clipping”). LOCAs are postulated to occur quite differently, starting from normal power operations followed by a long period of lower power decay heat. TREAT is able to simulate LOCA events with an initial flattop transient for tens of seconds, followed by a sizeable power reduction, to a longer segment where specimen fission heating represents internal decay heat generation. Two reactor physics testing campaigns were undertaken to address the HZP-RIA type transients, neither of which had been performed in any great measure historically to address data gaps in the timing, repeatability of clipping and effect of dynamic transient rod motions on core-to-specimen fission power coupling. The first campaign, referred to as the Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) transient prescription tests, employed dosimeters in the core to characterize the effect of rod motions on specimen power coupling for clipped, unclipped, and low-level steady state operations each with approximately the same moderate core energy release. This campaign was accompanied by efforts to measure dosimetry and compare results to analytic predictions. The other HZP-RIA campaign, referred to as Narrow Pulse Width (NPW) transient prescriptions, employed higher step insertions with increased core energy release to demonstrate TREAT’s capability in achieving the narrowest-possible pulse width. Additionally, a series of LOCA transient prescriptions were also performed to demonstrate how well TREAT could perform long-duration shaped transients. Both NPW and LOCA transient prescriptions did not include dosimeters but used existing plant power instrumentation to produce transient power data. All three transient prescription campaigns were successfully carried out in TREAT. The ATF-3 transient prescriptions showed that TREAT can perform clipped transients with remarkable repeatability. Measurement and modeling both showed that the power coupling in small, fissile dosimeters does not change by more than 8% between clipped, unclipped, and steady state runs while uncertainty sources in both the modeling and measurement methods were identified and found to be on the order of 20% in total. Overall, the ATF-3 transient prescription tests were successful in determining repeatability and consistency of dosimeter power coupling, developing processes for modeling and measuring this crucial parameter, and demonstrating the need for continued efforts in transient prescription work at TREAT in support of future experiment design and post test data interpretation. The NPW and LOCA transient prescriptions were also successfully performed to exhibit TREAT’s capability for these important LWR accident categories. The NPW transients showed pulse widths of ~90 ms, which were the narrowest ever achieved in TREAT to date and relevant for the upper end range of HZP-RIA simulation. This effort provided crucial data for calibrating kinetic models to be used in enhanced pulse-narrowing strategies in upcoming irradiations. Similarly, The LOCA transient prescriptions showed that TREAT can simulate the needed nuclear heating and event time scales for LOCA fuel safety research and provided essential data for future experiment design.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Nuclear Technology Research and Development
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC07-05ID14517
- OSTI ID:
- 1497075
- Report Number(s):
- INL/EXT-18-51416-Rev000
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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