Study on Purification Efficiency along System Design in an Open-pool Research Reactor

The pool water and primary coolant should be managed within the allowable water chemistry limits to minimize the corrosion of the nuclear fuel cladding and systems through the operation of the pool water management system. According to the intake points for the purification, the purification flow rate of the PWMS should be designed differently and should be found at an optimal value for the economic efficiency. The intake points for purification can be considered as two cases: one branched from the PCS and the other from the reactor pool. The considered PCS is designed with a quasi-closed loop due to a grid plate cooling flow supplied at the lower section of a reactor structure assembly. In this paper, the purification efficiency using the flow rate parameter is discussed in the above-mentioned two cases to find the optimized intake point at the economic aspect. Under a quasi-close loop of the PCS design and 6 hours of the purification half-life, the required purification flow rate in the case of the intake from the PCS is calculated much smaller than that in the other case. Accordingly, the sizing of the purification unit in the case (b) can be smaller and the installation and maintenance area can be smaller.