Primary system thermal hydraulics of future Indian fast reactors

• Published in: Nuclear engineering and design 2015-12, Vol.294, p.170-182
• Main Authors: Velusamy, K., Natesan, K., Maity, Ram Kumar, Asokkumar, M., Baskar, R. Arul, Rajendrakumar, M., Sarathy, U. Partha, Selvaraj, P., Chellapandi, P., Kumar, G. Senthil, Jebaraj, C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0029-5493; 1872-759X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nucengdes.2015.09.014

•We present innovative design options proposed for future Indian fast reactor.•These options have been validated by extensive CFD simulations.•Hotspot factors in fuel subassembly are predicted by parallel CFD simulations.•Significant safety improvement in the thermal hydraulic design is quantified. As a follow-up to PFBR (Indian prototype fast breeder reactor), many FBRs of 500MWe capacity are planned. The focus of these future FBRs is improved economy and enhanced safety. They are envisaged to have a twin-unit concept. Design and construction experiences gained from PFBR project have provided motivation to achieve an optimized design for future FBRs with significant design changes for many critical components. Some of the design changes include, (i) provision of four primary pipes per primary sodium pump, (ii) inner vessel with single torus lower part, (iii) dome shape roof slab supported on reactor vault, (iv) machined thick plate rotating plugs, (v) reduced main vessel diameter with narrow-gap cooling baffles and (vi) safety vessel integrated with reactor vault. This paper covers thermal hydraulic design validation of the chosen options with respect to hot and cold pool thermal hydraulics, flow requirement for main vessel cooling, inner vessel temperature distribution, safety analysis of primary pipe rupture event, adequacy of decay heat removal capacity by natural convection cooling, cold pool transient thermal loads and thermal management of top shield and reactor vault.