Development of severe accident mitigation technology and analysis for SMART

Highlights: • Severe accident mitigation technology was developed for a small integral reactor of SMART. • Severe accident mitigation strategy was evaluated using MELCOR computer code. • The dominant sequence of SBO was selected from PSA results for SMART. • The containment pressure was analyzed for containment integrity maintenance. • The hydrogen behavior was analyzed to check the hydrogen safety criteria. Severe accident mitigation technology was developed and evaluated for a small integral reactor of SMART. The containment pressure and hydrogen behavior were analyzed using MELCOR computer code (Sandia National Laboratory, 2018) in the SBO (Station Black Out) sequence, which was selected from PSA (Probabilistic Safety Assessment) results for the SMART. The severe accident mitigation technology to improve the SMART safety include reactor vessel depressurization using the ADS (Automatic Depressurization System) to prevent DCH (Direct Containment Heating) in case of a reactor vessel failure, a reactor cavity flooding using the CFS (Cavity Flooding System) with the IRWST (In-containment Refueling Water Storage Tank) for the IVR-ERVC (In-Vessel corium Retention through External Reactor Vessel Cooling) to prevent the reactor vessel failure, and a hydrogen control system of PARs (Passive Autocatalytic Recombiners) to remove hazards from hydrogen combustion considering the amount of hydrogen to be generated by 100% fuel cladding oxidation. The MELCOR results showed that the containment pressures during the SBO sequence was below the design pressure, which meant that the containment integrity is maintained during a severe accident in the SMART. The hydrogen mole fraction of the containment was much lower than the hydrogen safety criteria of 10 vol%, which meant that the possibility of the hydrogen burn in the containment was negligible. For this reason, it could be concluded that the hydrogen was controlled by the hydrogen moving path and the hydrogen control system of PARs in the SBO sequence of the SMART.