Experimental study on the hydraulic characteristics of inertia tank after the failure of pump power

Highlights: • The hydraulic characteristics of inertia tank are studied experimentally. • Inertia tank can slow down the decreasing speed of mass flow in UPIT. • The effects of connection pipe diameter and inertia tank diameter are researched. Inertia tank is a potential equipment to replace the flywheel of main pump, which can reduce the decreasing speed of mass flow rate in core after the failure of main pump power. In this paper, an experimental setup has been designed and constructed to analysis the hydraulic characteristics of inertia tank. The experimental results show that after the failure of pump power, inertia tank can act as flywheel to reduce the decreasing speed of mass flow rate in upstream pipe of inertia tank, and the working process of inertia tank can be divided into transition stage, LDPI action stage and oscillation stage. The influence of connection pipe diameter (CPD) and inertia tank diameter (ITD) on the hydraulic characteristics of inertia tank are studied experimentally. The experimental results show that CPD affects the entire working process of inertia tank, while ITD mainly affects the LDPI action stage and oscillation stage.