Safety cases for design-basis accidents in LWRs featuring passive systems

Highlights: • Testing of the behaviour of passive safety systems during conditions of loss of alternating power for the BWR KERENA. • In all cases the key safety functions of core cooling and keeping containment integrity were verified. • The experimental results provide an unprecedented and much valued database for validation of thermal–hydraulic system codes. This paper presents results from a series of integral tests performed at Framatome's INKA test facility in Karlstein (Germany) which simulates a KERENA boiling water reactor (BWR). The scope of the test series was on the behaviour of and interaction between the different passive systems and components under the conditions of extended loss of alternating power (ELAP). These SBO-like conditions were aggravated in three out of four tests by parallel LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accident). The scenarios of all four tests fully correspond to Design Basic Conditions (DBC). They were: main steam line break, feed water line break, reactor pressure vessel (RPV) bottom leak and station blackout (SBO, non-LOCA). In the tests, the passive systems integrated in KERENA and INKA, respectively, have fulfilled their design functions fully satisfactorily and as follows: The Passive Pressure Pulse Transmitter (PPPT) triggered the RPV depressurization without delay. The Emergency Condenser (EC) system removed decay heat along with stored energy from the RPV to the containment. The Containment Cooling Condenser (CCC) system forwarded said power to a heat sink outside of the containment. The passive containment pressure suppression system kept the containment pressure within the design range, partially displacing surplus thermal energy from the drywell to the wetwell, in particular in the early phases after occurrence of LOCA. The passive core flooding system replenished the coolant inventory of the RPV thereby ensuring water levels in the RPV which are fully sufficient for core cooling. Moreover, the systems have cooperated as anticipated by the designers, quietly and without perturbing each other. Hence the test results, which are reported and discussed more in detail within this paper, soundly confirm the underlying design and its passive features. Said tests were carried out as a part of the joint research project EASY (Evidence of Design Basis Accidents Mitigation solely with passive safety Systems), the overarching objective of which was the development and validation of the code system AC² of GRS (Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit gGmbH).