TY - JOUR
T1 - Assessing the Impact of Effective Thermal Conductivity on Gas-Cooled Reactor Transients in RELAP5-3D
AU - Kile, Robert F.
AU - Epiney, Aaron S.
AU - Brown, Nicholas R.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research made use of the resources of the High Performance Computing Center at Idaho National Laboratory, which is supported by the &ffice of Nuclear Energy of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Science User Facilities under Contract No. DE-AC0 - 05ID1451 . This manuscript has been authored by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC0 - 05ID1451 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.
Funding Information:
This research made use of the resources of the High Performance Computing Center at Idaho National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Nuclear Energy of the U.S. Department of Energy and the Nuclear Science User Facilities under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517. This manuscript has been authored by Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC07-05ID14517 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. Government purposes.
PY - 2022/11/22
Y1 - 2022/11/22
N2 - High-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) are a relatively mature advanced reactor concept that are of interest to industry and government for near-term deployment. These systems feature passive safety through low power density, coated particle fuels, and large graphite volumes that lead to slow heatup. In loss of flow transients, cooldown is achieved through conduction and radiation heat transfer. In prismatic block-type reactors, such as the mHTGR-350, the presence of coolant holes and fuel compacts alters the flow of heat through the blocks. To capture this effect in systems codes like RELAP5-3D, relationships for effective thermal conductivity (ETC) must be used to appropriately degrade the thermal conductivity. This work presents an assessment of the impact of ETC on performance of block-type gas-cooled reactors in a pressurized conduction cooldown (PCC) and depressurized conduction cooldown (DCC) transients. Models for PCC and DCC with bulk material thermal conductivity and ETC were run for both the mHTGR-350 and the High-Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to determine the impact of ETC on transient performance.
AB - High-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) are a relatively mature advanced reactor concept that are of interest to industry and government for near-term deployment. These systems feature passive safety through low power density, coated particle fuels, and large graphite volumes that lead to slow heatup. In loss of flow transients, cooldown is achieved through conduction and radiation heat transfer. In prismatic block-type reactors, such as the mHTGR-350, the presence of coolant holes and fuel compacts alters the flow of heat through the blocks. To capture this effect in systems codes like RELAP5-3D, relationships for effective thermal conductivity (ETC) must be used to appropriately degrade the thermal conductivity. This work presents an assessment of the impact of ETC on performance of block-type gas-cooled reactors in a pressurized conduction cooldown (PCC) and depressurized conduction cooldown (DCC) transients. Models for PCC and DCC with bulk material thermal conductivity and ETC were run for both the mHTGR-350 and the High-Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) to determine the impact of ETC on transient performance.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85179817844&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.13182/T127-39571
DO - 10.13182/T127-39571
M3 - Conference article
SN - 0003-018X
VL - 127
SP - 747
EP - 750
JO - Transactions of the American Nuclear Society
JF - Transactions of the American Nuclear Society
IS - 1
T2 - 2022 Transactions of the American Nuclear Society Winter Meeting and Technology Expo, ANS 2022
Y2 - 13 November 2022 through 17 November 2022
ER -