Scaling Analysis of Natural Circulation Flow Loop

To improve the thermal margin for the severe accident measures in high-power reactors, engineered corium cooling systems involving boiling-induced two-phase natural circulation have been proposed for decay heat removal. The boiling-induced natural circulation flow is generated in a coolant path between a hot vessel wall and cold coolant reservoir. In general, an increase in the natural circulation mass flow rate of the coolant leads to an increase in the critical heat flux (CHF) on the hot wall, thus enhancing the thermal margin. An ex-vessel core catcher under consideration, which is one of the engineered corium cooling system, is a passive system consisting of an inclined engineered cooling channel made of a single channel between the body of the core catcher and the inside wall of the reactor cavity. Under severe accident conditions, water is supplied from the IRWST to the engineered cooling channel. The water in the inclined channel absorbs the decay heat transferred from the corium through the carbon steel structure of the core catcher body and boils off as steam. The latter is subsequently released into the free volume of the containment above the corium spreading compartment. Water continues to flow from the IRWST to the cooling channel as a result of buoyancy-driven natural circulation. The engineered cooling channel is designed to provide effective long-term cooling and stabilization of the corium mixture in the core catcher body while facilitating steam venting. In this study, the scaling analysis was performed by solving the natural circulation flow loop equation for the cooling channel in the ex-vessel core catcher. The scaling analysis was performed by solving the natural circulation flow loop equation for the cooling channel in the ex-vessel core catcher. The boiling-induced natural circulation flow in the cooling channel of the core catcher has been modeled by considering the conservation of mass, momentum and energy in the two-phase mixture, along with the two-phase friction drop and void fraction. The resulting governing system has been solved numerically to predict the natural circulation flow rate that would be induced in the channel by the downward-facing boiling process for given flow area and inclination of the channel relative to the gravitational field. In order to compensate the geometric discrepancy between the experimental facility and prototypic core catcher system, the orifice was selected by the scaling analysis with relation of total form loss factor in the down-comer region and area ratio of the cooing channel to the down-comer