Improved Prediction of the Temperature Feedback in TRISO-Fueled Reactors

The Doppler feedback mechanism is a major contributor to the passive safety of gas-cooled, graphite-moderated high temperature reactors that use fuel based on Tristructural-Isotropic coated particles. It follows that the correct prediction of the magnitude and time-dependence of this feedback effect is essential to the conduct of safety analyses for these reactors. We present a fuel conduction model for obtaining better estimates of the temperature feedback during moderate and fast transients. The fuel model has been incorporated in the CYNOD-THERMIX-KONVEK suite of coupled codes as a single TRISO particle within each calculation cell. The heat generation rate is scaled down from the neutronic solution and a Dirichlet boundary condition is imposed as the bulk graphite temperature from the thermal-hydraulic solution. This simplified approach yields similar results to those obtained with more complex methods, requiring multi-TRISO calculations within one control volume, but with much less computational effort. An analysis of the hypothetical total control ejection in the PBMR-400 design verifies the performance of the code during fast transients. In addition, the analysis of the earthquake-initiated event in the PBMR-400 design verifies the performance of the code during slow transients. These events clearly depict the improvement in the predictions of the fuel temperature, and consequently, of the power escalations. In addition, a brief study of the potential effects of particle layer de-bonding on the transient behavior of high temperature reactors is included. Although the formation of a gap occurs under special conditions its consequences on the dynamic behavior of the reactor should be analyzed. The presence of a gap in the fuel can cause some unusual reactor behavior during fast transients, but still the reactor shuts down due to the strong feedback effects.