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326307

Research Reactor Safety Analysis under Partial Loss of Flow without SCRAM

Article

Last updated: 03 Jan 2025

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Abstract

The objective of the present study is to investigate the safety parameters and their safety margins for a typical MTR pool type research reactor during a partial loss of flow or core bypass without scram. The proposed reactor is a plate type fuel element with upward core flow. The code used in the analysis is RELAP5/MOD3.3, the well-known thermal hydraulic system code. Different causes for the partial loss of flow may occur such as, circulation pump degradation, one of the flapper valves fail to tightly close, small break in the cold leg, etc. In the proposed postulated accident, an exponential decrease of the core flow rate is assumed to occur with a time constant of 25 s to 20, 40, 60, and 80% of the nominal core flow, as the new steady state values. Study results for thermal hydraulic reactor behavior were validated by comparing RELAP5 results with published results of PARET code under the same accident conditions. Also, the safety parameters and margins were calculated. From comparisons, good agreements are found between RELAP5 code results and PARET code results for the maximum coolant, clad, and fuel temperatures, as well as minimum DNBR values. Deviations are found between the results of the two codes for flow instability parameter. But, both of the two codes concluded that fuel integrity criteria, in terms of thermal hydraulic instability, are not exceeded. In the second part of the study, the effect of decreasing the time constant on the transient results was studied.

DOI

10.21608/ajnsa.2023.237569.1777

Keywords

MTR reactor, RELAP5, Core bypass, loss of flow, PARET

Authors

First Name

Neama

Last Name

El-Sahlamy

MiddleName

Mohammed

Affiliation

Department of Nuclear Safety Engineering, Nuclear and Radiological Safety Research Center, Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority, Cairo, Egypt

Email

eng.neama@yahoo.com

City

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Orcid

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First Name

Ahmed

Last Name

Khedr

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

Department of Nuclear Safety Engineering, Nuclear and Radiological Safety Research Center, Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority.

Email

ahmedhkedr111@yahoo.com

City

-

Orcid

-

Volume

57

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

45153

Issue Date

2024-01-01

Receive Date

2023-09-19

Publish Date

2024-01-01

Page Start

51

Page End

62

Print ISSN

1110-0451

Online ISSN

2090-4258

Link

https://ajnsa.journals.ekb.eg/article_326307.html

Detail API

https://ajnsa.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=326307

Order

326,307

Type

Original Article

Type Code

455

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Arab Journal of Nuclear Sciences and Applications

Publication Link

https://ajnsa.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Research Reactor Safety Analysis under Partial Loss of Flow without SCRAM

Details

Type

Article

Created At

23 Dec 2024