Development of numerical analysis method for core thermal-hydraulics during natural circulation decay heat removal in SFR. (1) Validation of ASFRE code in estimation of radial heat transfer phenomena

For the thermal-hydraulic design regarding a fuel assembly of sodium-cooled fast reactors, a subchannel analysis code ASFRE has been developed by JAEA. ASFRE was applied to numerical simulations of several kinds of water and sodium experiments as its validation studies and it was confirmed that pressure drops and temperature distributions measured in the experiments can be well reproduced. To enhance safety of sodium-cooled fast reactor, it is required to evaluate thermal-hydraulics in a core during decay heat removal by natural circulation. It is necessary to estimate radial heat transfer phenomena between fuel assemblies. In this study, a numerical simulation of a 37-pin bundle sodium experiment with radial heat flux was carried out and it was confirmed that ASFRE can be qualitatively reproduced temperature distributions in a fuel assembly affected by radial heat transfer. (author)