Analysis of the Natural Circulation Behavior in Regional Energy rX-10MWth

Recently there has been a renewal of interest in the Small- and Medium-sized nuclear Reactor (SMR)1-2 such as NHR-200 (China), CAREM (Argentina), IRIS (USA), PSRD-100 (Japan) and SMART (Korea). The SMR has two significant redeeming features various applications and enhanced safety. Firstly, the SMR is used for desalination, district heating, ship propulsion and small-scale power generation. Secondly, in the case of the SMR as the main pipes in the reactor pressure vessel are eliminated and have a simple design, it can avoid a large break loss of coolant accident (LBLOCA). A Regional Energy Research Institute for Next Generation (Redi) is designing a new conceptual nuclear reactor, a Regional Energy rX-10MWth (Rex- 10)3 as references of various SMRs. To increase reactor safety, the REX-10 adopts the cooling mode of natural circulation. To evaluate the natural circulation behavior of the REX-10, an experimental facility, NACTER, was designed by scaling down the REX-10. The detailed descriptions of NACTER are in section 2. The main purpose of this article is to evaluate the natural circulation behavior of the REX-10 by the experiment