Applicability evaluation of a natural circulation loop to a uranium hydride bed for tritium accountability

A PVT-c method, which is widely used to measure the amount of tritium, is not practical for a UH_x bed because the process is time-consuming and includes tritium desorption and transfer processes, which can increase the potential risk of tritium release. In this study, a natural circulation (NC) loop, which can compensate for the issues of a PVT-c method, was numerically designed and evaluated for tritium accountability (TA) of a UH_x bed. The numerical evaluation shows that the NC loop can be applied to a UH_x bed for TA. Moreover, the characteristics of various parameters including the geometry, and initial pressure of the NC loop, were obtained. These characteristics can be commonly applied to any type of NC loops using heat sources and sinks.