Design and experiments on a scaled version of a two-phase natural circulation NUCLEAR REACTOR (ESBWR)

Full text of publication follows: Early 2004 a new project was entrusted to the Delft University of Technology. It consists of designing, constructing, operating and analyzing a scaled version of core, riser and downcomer parts of the European Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR), in order to guarantee stable behaviour of this reactor under all practical circumstances. The ESBWR, a natural-circulation BWR of 4500 MWth, is currently under development by General Electric. For this purpose, scaling rules were developed, and as result of an extensive study Freon 134a was chosen to be used as working fluid for the new facility. The design of the facility is now being finalized. The facility will be ready for operation this summer, after which the measurements will be performed. The paper will present the scaling methodology and scaling results, together with the relation between the behaviour of the facility and the ESBWR, the results of the measurements of the natural circulation flow rate and the stability characteristics. Finally, this work will show predictions of the ESBWR stability. (authors)