Blowdown and rewetting characteristics for AHWR under postulated LOCA - an analytical study

Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) is a thorium fuelled, natural circulation driven and heavy water moderated reactor. The cooling of the nuclear fuel is achieved through natural circulation mode for the tube type reactor where hot and cold leg of the reactor has been designed to be long and high enough to avail the gravity head desired to overcome the hydraulic resistances in the flow path. The natural circulation cooling mode makes AHWR very different as compared to other tube type reactors with forced circulation e.g RBMK. This cooling feature which calls for longer pipes length and elevation head is having an influence on the blowdown characteristic and the initial fuel heatup characteristic of the reactor. Analyses of Loss of Coolant Accident carried out for different break sizes in the inlet header of the reactor identifies two competing transient forces namely 'blowdown force' and 'natural circulation' which act against each other due to virtue of the break location. The flow in the reactor channel is being decided by these two forces and eventually the flow condition decides the fuel heatup. It has been observed through analyses that variation of break sizes from moving smaller break sizes to bigger one (30% to 200%), causes an enhancement in blowdown forces and weakening of driving force for natural circulation as quality appears in cold leg section. A balance of these two forces is observed for 200% break case, causing a sustained flow stagnation condition leading to maximum fuel heat up among all the break cases. The blowdown characterization study is being carried out with RELAP5/mod3.4 code and the influences of transient forces on the fuel heatup are presented. It is concluded that the fuel heat up during blowdown phase is significantly dependent on the two competing forces namely blowdown and natural circulation which eventually depend on break sizes. The mist flow regime remains for a longer period during rewetting phase and the ECCS injection leads to change of phase from mist to slug/ annular mist regime. The modelling of fuel cluster (single channel to three sub-channel) is found to have a bearing on the PCT and rewetting period