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Nuclear Science and Techniques, Vo1.18, No.3 (2007) 186192

NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNIQUES

Analysis on natural circulation capacity of the CARR

TIAN Wenxi" QIU Suizheng' WANG Jiaqiang' JIA Dounan' ZHANG Jianwei2 SU Guanghui'

('Department of Nuclear Science and Technology. Xi'an Jiaotong UniversityXi'an 710049, China; 'Department of Nuclear Reactor Engineering Design, China Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing 102413, China)

Abstract The investigation on natural circulation (NC) characteristics of the China Advanced Research Reactor(CARR) is very valuable for practical engineering application and also a key subject for the CARR.In this study, a computer code was developed to calculate the NC capacity of the CARR under different pool water temperatures. Effects of the pool water temperature on NC characteristics were analyzed. The results show that with increasing pool water temperature, the NC flow rate increases while the NC capacity decreases. Based on the computation results and theoretical deduction, a correlation was proposed on predicting the relationship between the NC mass flow and the core power under different conditions. The correlation prediction agrees well with the computational result within
+_lo% the maximal deviation. This work is instructive for the actual operation of the CARR. for

Key words China Advanced Research Reactor, Natural circulation capacity, Steady state characteristics CLC number TL333

between the pressure drop and mass flow rate under NC condition. Yang et a1 [71 conducted many experiAfter the TMI (Three Mile Island)-2 severe acciments on single phase NC and proposed a correlation dent, various passive systems have been widely used between the heating power and the mass flow rate to enhance the inherent safety of new designed nuclear which agreed well with experimental data. reactor systems. Natural circulation (NC), which is The China Advanced Research Reactor (CARR) driven by the density difference between the cold coobeing built in Beijing at the China Institute of Atomic lant and hot coolant in the loop, became the focus of Energy (CIAE) is a fundamental research facility for much engineering research. Many experimental invessustainable development of nuclear science and techtigations have been conducted to evaluate the NC chanology in China. A schematic diagram of CARR is racteristics of nuclear reactors."-41 Some researcher shown in Fig. 1. As a multi-purpose research reactor, it used RealpS, or other commercial software, to analyze is of a tank-in-pool and inversed neutron-trap-type. thermal hydraulic behaviors under NC ~ondition'~'. Slightly pressurized light water is used as the primary Many results have been successfully adopted in decoolant and moderator, and heavy water as the reflecsigning nuclear facilities. tor. After shutdown, the residual power is removed by In China, Jiang [61 carried out a series of investiNC of the pool water. The pool water enters the decay gations on the flux drift phenomena of 5 M W low tembox from the filter fixed on the top of the decay box, perature nuclear heating reactor under NC condition. flows up through the active core and the guiding tank, He discussed the mechanism of subcooled boiling, the and finally returns to the pool through the NC valve mechanism of flash evaporation and the relationship fixed on the side of the guiding tank.
* E-mail: wxtian@mailst.xjtu.eddu.cn
Received date: 2006- 12- 13

Introduction

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TIAN Wenxi et al.: Analysis on natural circulation capacity of the CARR

187

hp, = - + e l
From Eqs. (1) and (2),
hp,

can be written as

For CARR, the driven h e a d o , is caused by the density difference between the cold pool water and the hot core vessel coolant. Then Eq.(2) could be rewritten as

Fig.1 Schematic diagram of CARR.

The investigation on NC characteristics of CARR is of great value for its safe operation. The objective of this study is to analyze the steady thermal-hydraulic behaviors of CARR under NC condition. A computer code was developed using Fortran90 to calculate the NC capacity of CARR under different pool water temperatures. The influence of the pool water temperature on NC characteristics was analyzed. Based on the computation results and theoretical deduction, a correlation was proposed to predict the relationship between the NC mass flow rate and the core power.
2

Calculation procedure

Given a certain core power Q,, ,iterative method is adopted to solve Eq. (3) and Eq. (4). and a matched NC mass flow rate Wn, is obtained. Given a serial of Q,,,, the matched serial of W, could be obtained. Not all of these W, and Qw could satisfy the 'Safety Design Regulation of CARR', a further thermal-hydraulic calculation must be done to judge whether the coolant is subcooled and the departure from nucleate boiling ratio (DNBR) is larger enough. The correlation used to predict the occurrence of ONB(0nset of Nucleate Boiling) is Bergles-Rohsenow correlation. Sudo18]correlation is adopted for the prediction of CHF(Critica1Heat Flux). Sudo correlation is based on lots of experimental data in rectangled channels and has been adopted in the design of JRR-3"' with plate type fuel element structure.

For the steady flow in an enclosed NC loop, the momentum equation can be expressed as

Computation results

Me, represent the friction, local, where hp, ,M, ,Ma, acceleration and elevation pressure drop, respectively. The NC driven head hp, is equal to the algebra integral sum elevation pressure drop along the enclosed loop, i.e.

As a pool-type research reactor, operational parameters of the CARR are affected considerably by the environmental conditions. Referring to weather conditions in four seasons in North China, the NC capacity of CARR was evaluated at 10C of pool water temperatures in winter, 25oC in spring and fall, and 40C in summer.

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NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNIQUES

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3.1 NC capacity at 10% of pool water tempera-

ture
Fig.2 shows the calculation result at 10 "C of pool water temperature. It can be seen that the NC mass flow rate increases with the core power. And the coolant ONB safe-enough margin (the temperature differences between the real coolant temperature and the fictitious coolant temperature when ONB occurs) in hot channel decreases with increasing core power. According to the 'Safety Design Regulation of CARR, coolant subcooled nucleate boiling is not allowed in normal operation. Considering the prediction error of empirical correlation, a 5 "C temperature difference is selected as the coolant ONI3 safety margin. From Fig. 2, the maximum NC capacity (the core power) is 1.95h4W and the NC mass flow rate is 9.11 kg-s".

The maximum fuel temperature is 132T, which is much less than the fuel melting temperature (- 400C).

; 120
2 100 3

5 a

80

60
40

20
0

.
0.2
0.40.45

0.6

0.8

Axial height from the wre inlet L I m

60

-*DNBR DNBR=I.5

50

/=

._I

Core power: 1.95 MW

40 .

ONB margin in hot channel . - 100 E, __ NC mass flow rate

f 30 : n
20
10
' '

Mass flow rate: 9.11 kg-s-'

.-.
~

Hot channel MDNBR=5.4

~-m-m-.-.-m-*
I .

(b)
T ,
I .

t
0

0.2

I .95i
I
. * I .

- -20 0
2.5

0.4 0.6 0.8 Axial height from core inlet L I m

1.o

0.5

1.o 1.5 Core power Q I MW

2.0

Fig.2 NC capacity under 10C of pool water temperature.

Fig.3(a) shows the clad temperature distribution, the real coolant temperature and the fictitious ONB coolant temperature along the hot channel under 1.95MW core power. The fictitious ONE coolant temperature decreases first but increases along the flow direction. The coolant ONB safety margin reaches the minimum requirement of 5C at the node 0.45 m away from the core inlet. This is caused mainly by the approximative cosine distribution of the axial core power. Fig.3(b) shows the DNBR profile along the coolant flow direction in hot channel. The MDNBR is 5.4, which indicates that the safe-enough margin occurs at the node 0.34 m away from the core inlet. Fig.3(c) shows the coolant temperature distribution and the heat structure temperature in hot channel.

0.4 0.6 Axial height from core inlet L / m

0.2

0.8

Fig3 Thermal-hydraulic parameters in hot channel. (a) Coolant temperature profile; (b) DNBR profile; (c) Heat smcture temperature profile.

3.2 NC capacity at 25T of pool water temperature

Fig.4 shows the calculation results under 25C of

No.3

TIAN Wenxi et al.: Analysis on natural circulation capacity of the CARR

189

pool water temperature. The maximum NC capacity is 1.68 M W and the mass flow rate is 9.33 k g es-'. Further computation shows that the MDNBR in hot channel is 3.9 with safe-enough margin. Compared with the 10C results, the NC capacity at 25C of pool water temperature decreases from 1.95 MW to I .68 MW, however, the mass flow rate increases from 9.1 1 kg.s-' to 9.33 kg0s-l.

temperature on the NC capacity cannot be neglected. Fig.6 shows NC mass flow rate and coolant ONB safety margin at different temperatures of the pool water with 1.2 MW core power. The NC mass flow rate increases with the pool water temperature. At a certain core power, the outlet coolant temperature rises at higher pool water temperatures. And the density difference between the pool water and the hot core becomes larger, as vessel coolant (pP, - p-) Sp, > 6p, (Fig.7). The increased density difference causes larger NC driven force and leads to higher NC mass flow rate. On the other hand, higher pool water temperature decreases the coolant ONB safety margin. That is why the NC mass flow rare increases while the NC capacity (core power) decreases with increasing pool water temperature.
1 7

Core power Q I MW

c o r e Power: 1.2MW-ONB
7

Fig.4 NC capacity under 25 9: of pool water temperature.

5012

-Mass

margin in hot channet 60 margin equals 5C 50 flow rate

3.3 NC capacity at 40% of pool water temperature

Fig.5 shows the calculation results at 40C of pool water temperature. The maximum NC capacity is 1.46MW and the mass flow rate is 9.69 kg.s-'. The MDNBR in hot channel is 3.5 with safe-enough margin. The NC capacity at 40C of pool water temperature is the lowest but the mass flow rate is the largest one of all pool water temperatures.

14

a0
Pool water temp: 40%

Fig.6 NC mass flow rate and ONB margin at different temperatures of the pool water.

1010 L

=-!-.
:

U -

...................................
5 -r<;. . .

=-. -...

7,

,
2.0

.
2.5

!<(
,

e0.2MPa

.............................

0.5

1.5 Core power Q I MW

1 .o

Fig.5 NC capacity at 409: of pool water temperature.

I . l > l . I L I . l

3.4 Effects of pool water temperature on NC capacity

The results indicate that effects of pool water

Temperature T I 'C

Fig.7 Coolant density at different coolant temperatures.

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NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNIQUES

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Discussion

power is removed by the coolant flow, i.e.

The relationship between the single phase NC mass flow rate and the core power can be derived from the basic momentum conservation equation with Boussinesq hypothesis. On the assumption that the Boussinesq hypothesis is applicable to coolant density of single phase flow, one has
P = P, [ I - P(T - T ) ]

Q=w~p(T,,-Tn)
From Eqs. (10) and (1 l),

(1 1)

(5)
By defining

For the enclosed NC circulation loop of CARR, the integral sum of acceleration pressure drop is equal to zero. Then Eq. (1) can be written as
the relationship between the NC mass flow rate W and the core power Q is expressed as
1

According to the Boussinesq hypothesis, the right side of Eq.(6) can be expressed as

The left side of Eq. (6) can be reduced to

If R1 is a constant, Eq. (14) indicates that the NC mass flow rate W is directly proportional to 113 power function of the core power Q. However, the coolant thermal physical property, the layout of NC loop, the mass flow rate and the core power do have effect on R,, Yang et al.[71 used a constant C to substitute R , , and the exponential term '1/3' in Eq. (14) shall be an uncertain parameter n as shown in Eq. (15):

If R is defined as
(9)

the following equation can be obtained from Eqs. (7), (8) and (9):

Experimental investigations by Yang et al."] indicate that n varies with the heating power. Under a lower heat power, n = 112, whereas n = 113 under high heat power. The eigenvalue core power is subjected to the testing loop structure. The computation results of the CARR were fitted according to the form of Eq. (15), and the comparison results (Fig.8) agree well with the fitted curves. It can seen that the eigenvalue n is 112 which is consistent with the experimental results in Ref.[7]. Fig.8 also indicates that the parameter C increases with the pool water temperature. The relationship between the pool water temperature and C can be expressed by a quadratic power function. Then the relationship between the NC mass flow rate and the core power can be finally written as

For steady NC circulation, the overall decay

No.3

TIAN Wenxi et at.:Analysis on natural circulation capacity of the CARR

191

W, = (6.2477 + O.O25T,,,

+ 0.00044Tp~I)Q~ (16)

Fig.9 shows the comparison between the computation results and the Eq.(16) prediction. The maximum deviation is less than 10%.The good consistency indicates that the NC mass tlow rate of CARR can be accurately predicted using Eq.( 16) for given core power and pool water temperature.

and theoretical deduction, a correlation was finally proposed on predicting the relationship between the NC mass flow and the core power under different conditions. Under the working conditions mentioned in this study, the correlation prediction agreed well with the computational result within +lo% for the maximal deviation.

Nomenclature
local resistance specific heat (kT.kg-'*R') inner diameter of pipe (m) friction coefficient gravity acceleration (rn*s-') length of flow channel (m) heating length of active core (m) heating length between the outlet of core and the NCV (m) heating length of the riser pipe (m) heating power (kW) core power (kW) parameter defined by Eq. (9) parameter defined by Eq. (1 3) coolant temperature ("c) reference temperature ("c ) inlet coolant temperature ("c) outlet coolant temperature ("c) flow velocity (m*s-') mass flow rate (kg*s") NC mass flow rate (kg*s-')

m Pool water temp 10%

0

W,,,=6.53959Q,0.5 Wn,=7.14386Qnc0.5 W,=7.95423Qn>5

Pool water temp 25C Pool water temp 40C

0.5

1.o

1.5

2.0

2.5

Core power 0 I MW ,

Fig.8 Fitted relationship between mass flow rate and core power.
15
I
A

Greek symbols
pr
0
2
4 6 8 I0 12 14 Prediction by Eq.(l6). x = f ! ( T ~ ) Q , , 0 . ~

reference density (kg*m-3*s-') expansion coefficient

Fig9 Comparison between the prediction by Eq.(16) and the

computational result by the analysis code.

Subscripts
in inlet nc natural circulation out outlet

Conclusions

An analysis code has been developed to calculate the NC capacity of the CARR under different pool water temperature conditions. Effects of the pool water temperature on natural circulation characteristics were analyzed. It was found that the NC flow rate increased while the NC capacity decreased with increasing pool water temperature. Based on the computational result

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Ishii M, Kataoka I. Nuclear Engineering and Design, 1984,

81: 411-425.
2
Zvinn Y, Duffey C W, Duffey R B. Experimental and analytical investigation of a P W R natural circulation loop.

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Ramsom V H. RELAPhIOD2 Code Manual, Vol.1, Code structure, systems models, and solution method. 1985,