Analysis of transient thermal response in the outlet plenum of an LMFBR

A two-zone mixing model based on the lumped-parameter approach was developed for the analysis of transient thermal response in the upper outlet plenum of an LMFBR. The one-dimensional turbulent jet flow equations were solved to determine the maximum penetration of the core flow. The maximum penetration is used as the criterion for dividing the sodium region into two mixing zones. The lumped-parameter model considers the transient sodium temperature affected by the thermal expansion of sodium, heat transfer with cover gas, heat capacity of different sections of metal and the addition of bypass flow into the plenum. Numerical calculations were performed for two cases. The first case corresponds to a normal scram followed by flow coast-down. The second case represents the double-ended pipe rupture at the inlet of cold leg followed by reactor scram. The results indicate that effects of flow stratification, chimney height, metal heat capacity and bypass flow are important for transient sodium temperature calculation. Thermal expansion of sodium and heat transfer with the cover gas does not play any significant role on sodium temperature. This two-zone mixing model will be a part of the thermohydraulic transient code SSC