The LOCA performance of the AP600 passive safety systems

The AP600 is an advanced passive safeguards pressurized water reactor (PWR) that is being developed jointly by Westinghouse Electric Corporation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Electrical Power Research Institute. The plant has a thermal rating of 1940 MW (thermal) [600 MW(electric)] and has been designed with passive safeguard systems that utilize gravity feed injection rather than safety-grade active pumps and equipment. Calculations performed for a range of break sizes used locations to find the worst set of conditions for depressurizing the reactor coolant system. The main criterion was system inventory such that the core remained covered. The resulting break spectrum study indicates only that the double-ended guillotine shear of the direct vessel injection line (a .68-in. line that feeds the emergency core coolant flow into the vessel) resulted in a momentary core uncover. For all other small-break cases, the core remained covered as the reactor coolant system depressurized. The passive safety systems provided sufficient mass flow to the reactor vessel such that even under the more conservative Appendix K assumptions, the core remained covered and in a coolable state. The LOCA analysis performed for the AP600 confirms that passive safety systems can provide the core cooling necessary to meet the requirements of 10CFR50.46 with ample margin