Demonstration of control rod holding stability of the self actuated shutdown system in Joyo for enhancement of fast reactor inherent safety

Self actuated shutdown system (SASS) with a Curie point electromagnet (CPEM) has been developed for use in a large-scale liquid metal cooled fast breeder reactor (LMFBR) in order to establish the passive shutdown capability against anticipated transient without scram (ATWS) events. The basic characteristics of SASS have already been investigated by various out-of-pile tests for material elements. As the final stage of the development, the stability of SASS needs to be confirmed under the actual reactor-operational environment with high temperature, high neutron flux, and flowing sodium to ensure the high plant availability factor. For this purpose, the demonstration test of holding stability using the reduced-scale experimental equipment of SASS was conducted in the 1st and 2nd operational cycles of the experimental fast reactor Joyo MK-III. The rod-holding stability and the rod-recovering functions of the driving system to re-connect and pull out the separated control rod were fully confirmed. The results also indicate there is no essential problem for the practical use of SASS about its operational trouble involving the unexpected drop during reactor operation. (author)