Perspective on Regulatory Review of SFR Flow Blockage Safety Issue

This phenomenon is expected to be one of the safety issues in SFR because of the geometrical compactness of the SFR core design.. A flow recirculation induced by the blockage could increase the local coolant temperature adjacent to the blocked channels during the incident and it might eventually lead to the degradation of the fuel rods. An in-depth study is needed to prevent core damage by flow blockage and to maintain the safety of the reactor core for the accident caused by the flow blockage. In this study, the state of the art on a sub-channel flow blockage for SFR is reviewed and the direction on how to evaluate the safety issue during the licensing review is suggested. In this study, the foreign and the domestic activities and positions on the flow blockage safety issue are reviewed. And the direction to take into account for a licensing reviewer is suggested