Study on local hydrogen behaviors in a subcompartment of the NPP containment

Hydrogen control in the case of severe accidents has been required by nuclear regulations to ensure the integrity of containment after TMI accidents. Up to now, many experiments have been conducted to estimate the distribution of hydrogen during accidents in nuclear power plants. In this article, we proposed a computer code named HYCA3D developed to calculate the local hydrogen distribution with three-dimensional time-dependent governing equations, which can simulate the transport of multiple species. Also, local hydrogen behavior has been experimentally investigated in a cylindrical multi-subcompartment mixing chamber, measuring the local concentration in various conditions. Hydrogen is simulated by helium in the experiments. The proposed code was verified with these experimental results, followed by pre-tests with EPRI/HEDL standard problems. The calculation results show good agreement with the experimental data.     

Experimental study on hydrogen behavior at a subcompartment in the containment building

Hydrogen control in the case of severe accidents has been required by nuclear regulations to ensure the integrity of the nuclear containment building after Three Miles Island (TMI) accidents. Up to now, many experiments have been conducted to estimate the distribution of hydrogen during accidents in nuclear power plants. In this study, local hydrogen behavior has been experimentally investigated in a cylindrical multi-subcompartment mixing chamber of the SNU (Seoul National University) hydrogen mixing facility, measuring the local concentration in various conditions and mixture injection locations. Hydrogen is simulated by helium in the experiments. Results showed remarkably different local behavior of helium in experiments of several conditions, and the local analysis for hydrogen concentration rather than the lumped compartment analysis, used widely in most plants, would be important to ensure the equipment survivability or to determine the positions of ignitors.     

Analysis of steam and hydrogen distributions with PAR mitigation in NPP containments

The 3-D-field code, GASFLOW is a joint development of Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe and Los Alamos National Laboratory for the simulation of steam/hydrogen distribution and combustion in complex nuclear reactor containment geometries. GASFLOW gives a solution of the compressible 3-D Navier–Stokes equations and has been validated by analysing experiments that simulate the relevant aspects and integral sequences of such accidents. The 3-D GASFLOW simulations cover significant problem times and define a new state-of-the art in containment simulations that goes beyond the current simulation technique with lumped-parameter models. The newly released and validated version, GASFLOW 2.1 has been applied in mechanistic 3-D analyzes of steam/hydrogen distributions under severe accident conditions with mitigation involving a large number of catalytic recombiners at various locations in two types of PWR containments of German design. This contribution describes the developed 3-D containment models, the applied concept of recombiner positioning, and it discusses the calculated results in relation to the applied source term, which was the same in both containments. The investigated scenario was a hypothetical core melt accident beyond the design limit from a large-break loss of coolant accident (LOCA) at a low release location for steam and hydrogen from a rupture of the surge line to the pressurizer (surge-line LOCA). It covers the in-vessel phase only with 7000 s problem time. The contribution identifies the principal mechanisms that determine the hydrogen mixing in these two containments, and it shows generic differences to similar simulations performed with lumped-parameter codes that represent the containment by control volumes interconnected through 1-D flow paths. The analyzed mitigation concept with catalytic recombiners of the Siemens and NIS type is an effective measure to prevent the formation of burnable mixtures during the ongoing slow deinertization process after the hydrogen release and has recently been applied in backfitting the operational German Konvoi-type PWR plants with passive autocatalytic recombiners (PAR).     

Three-dimensional behaviors of the hydrogen and steam in the APR1400 containment during a hypothetical loss of feed water accident

During a hypothetical severe accident in a nuclear power plant (NPP), hydrogen is generated by an active reaction of the fuel-cladding and the steam in the reactor pressure vessel and released with the steam into the containment. In order to mitigate hydrogen hazards which could possibly occur in the NPP containment, a hydrogen mitigation system (HMS) is usually adopted. The design of the next generation NPP (APR1400) developed in Korea specifies that 26 passive autocatalytic recombiners and 10 igniters should be installed in the containment for a hydrogen mitigation. In this study, an analysis of the hydrogen and steam behavior during a total loss of feed water (LOFW) accident in the APR1400 containment has been conducted by using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code GASFLOW. During the accident, a huge amount of hot water, steam, and hydrogen is released into the in-containment refueling water storage tank (IRWST). The current design of the APR1400 includes flap-type openings at the IRWST vents which operate depending on the pressure difference between the inside and outside of the IRWST. It was found from this study that the flaps strongly affect the flow structure of the steam and hydrogen in the containment. The possibilities of a flame acceleration and a transition from deflagration to detonation (DDT) were evaluated by using the Sigma–Lambda criteria. Numerical results indicate that the DDT possibility was heavily reduced in the IRWST compartment by the effects of the flaps during the LOFW accident.     

先进压水堆核电厂氢气控制策略分析研究

新建核电厂的设计必须做到“实际消除”早期与大量放射性释放的可能性,氢气燃爆导致的安全壳失效是必须要“实际消除”的严重事故工况之一。因此对各种消氢措施的特点进行分析研究,建立联合消氢策略评价方法,可为先进压水堆核电厂氢气控制策略选择设计评价提供支持手段。根据严重事故管理中对氢气控制策略的考虑,研究安全壳内局部位置的可燃性是相关设计评价的关键问题。根据可燃性准则、火焰加速准则、燃爆转变准则,本文使用三维CFD程序对典型严重事故工况下安全壳蒸汽发生器隔间内的可燃性及氢气风险进行模拟分析。研究结果表明,虽然喷放源项中有大量水蒸气,蒸汽发生器隔间中仍有较大区域处于可燃限值以内,合理布置的点火器能在设计中点燃并消除氢气。本研究建立的分析方法能用于对核电厂氢气控制策略选择设计的评价。     

Severe accident analysis of a 1300 MWe PWR to address the hydrogen issue

The behaviour of the potentially large quantity of hydrogen generated during a severe accident has been recognised as an issue of importance since the accident at Three Mile Island. In this article, we describe a severe accident analysis for the Neckarwestheim 2 1300 MWe PWR “Konvoi” plant, performed primarily to investigate the behaviour of hydrogen in the containment, and draw conclusions regarding the need for hydrogen control systems (igniters). The Modular Accident Analysis Program (MAAP) developed by IDCOR in the United States, and the Westinghouse COMPACT multi-compartment containment code were used. The study investigated the generation, release to containment, distribution within containment and potential combustion of hydrogen produced during two severe accident sequences. Results are summarized which show that hydrogen mixing in containment is generally good and that even without hydrogen control systems, hydrogen combustion, although possible, does not threaten containment integrity.     

百万千瓦级压水堆严重事故下局部隔间氢气风险分析

核安全法规要求控制严重事故下核电厂安全壳内的氢气浓度。除安全壳整体外,局部隔间的氢气浓度同样是关注的重点。本文采用一体化严重事故分析程序对百万千瓦级压水堆核电厂安全壳局部隔间进行建模,分析了不同事故下的氢气风险。结果表明,严重事故下部分隔间短时间内可能存在燃烧风险。本文对降低燃烧风险的方法进行分析计算和筛选,得出的结论可以为安全壳隔间的设计优化提供参考依据。     

Analysis of hydrogen flame acceleration in APR1400 containment by coupling hydrogen distribution and combustion analysis codes

This study was conducted as part of the construction of an integrated system to mechanistically evaluate flame acceleration characteristics in a containment of a nuclear power plant during a severe accident. In the integrated analysis system, multi-dimensional hydrogen distribution and combustion analysis codes are used to consider three-dimensional effects of the hydrogen behaviors. GASFLOW is used for the analysis of a hydrogen distribution in the containment. For the analysis of a hydrogen combustion in the containment, an open-source CFD (computational fluid dynamics) code OpenFOAM is chosen. Data of the hydrogen and steam distributions obtained from a GASFLOW analysis are transferred to the OpenFOAM combustion solver by a conversion and interpolation process between the solvers. The combustion solver imports the transferred data and initializes the containment atmosphere as an initial condition of a hydrogen combustion analysis. The turbulent combustion model used in this study was validated by evaluating the F22 test of the FLAME experiment. The coupled analysis method was applied for the analysis of a hydrogen combustion during a station blackout accident in an APR1400. In addition, the characteristics of the flame acceleration depending on a hydrogen release location are comparatively evaluated.     

Post-benchmark simulation of the THAI+ facility TH27 experiment

In order to maintain the integrity of a nuclear power plant containment and effectively manage a severe accident, it is necessary to understand phenomena occurring in the atmosphere of the nuclear power plant containment during the accident. A number of containment atmosphere mixing experiments have been performed in the dedicated experimental facilities, followed by the numerical simulations using lumped-parameter and computational fluid dynamics codes. This paper presents the THAI+ test facility experiment TH27 post-benchmark simulations performed with the lumped-parameter code ASTEC. The experiment TH27 was an initial operation test of the THAI+ facility, which has been recently constructed by expanding the experimental facility THAI with the newly constructed parallel attachable drum vessel. The experiment featured steam and helium injections and transport and mixing of gasses and steam between the two vessels, as well as wall heating and cooling of different vessels. The TH27 experiment was performed together with an international multistage benchmark, consisting of double-blind, blind, and open phases. The developed nodalization scheme and the features of the calculation are presented in the paper. The results of the calculations are compared to the experimental values for the main containment parameters – pressure, gas and wall temperatures, helium concentrations.     

先进压水堆核电站氢气风险分析

核电厂在严重事故期间会产生大量氢气并释放到安全壳内,威胁安全壳的完整性。应用氢气风险分析程序GASFLOW对先进压水堆核电站在大破口失水事故叠加应急堆芯冷却系统失效导致的严重事故期间的氢气行为及风险进行分析。结果表明,当气体释放源位于蒸汽发生器隔间时,氢气流动的主要路径为"蒸汽发生器隔间—穹顶空间—操作平台以下隔间";破口隔间的氢气体积浓度分布与源项氢气体积浓度及射流形态有关,非破口区域的氢气体积浓度呈层状分布,在扩散作用下,层状分布向下推移;蒸汽发生器隔间存在着火焰加速(FA)的可能性,但基本可排除燃爆转变(DDT)的可能性,穹顶区域基本可排除FA和DDT的可能性。     

Influence of injection temperature and flow rate on mixing and stratification in small passively cooling enclosures

Thermal mixing and stratification phenomena may occur during the loss of a coolant accident or main steam line break accident in the containment of a Passive Containment Cooling System, or in the suppression pools in BWR. However, the present study pays insufficient attention to the thermal stratification phenomena in the containment of small modular reactors(SMR). In this paper, an investigation on the mixing and thermal stratification phenomena caused by the plumes or buoyant jets in SMR containments was carried out. The experiments were both conducted under non-adiabatic and adiabatic conditions for a steel containment. In each condition, two key parameters, inlet temperature, and flow rate were tested by controlling variables to identify their influence on the thermal stratification phenomenon. The visualization experiments illustrated the jet mixing and stratification development. The experiment results were compared with the numerical computation and they reached a good agreement.     

Direct containment heating integral effects tests in geometries of European nuclear power plants

The DISCO test facility at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK) has been used to perform experiments to investigate direct containment heating (DCH) effects during a severe accident in European nuclear power plants, comprising the EPR, the French 1300 MWe plant P’4, the VVER-1000 and the German Konvoi plant. A high-temperature iron–alumina melt is ejected by steam into scaled models of the respective reactor cavities and the containment vessel. Both heat transfer from dispersed melt and combustion of hydrogen lead to containment pressurization. The main experimental findings are presented and critical parameters are identified.The consequences of DCH are limited in reactors with no direct pathway between the cavity and the containment dome (closed pit). The situation is more severe for reactors which do have a direct pathway between the cavity and the containment (open pit). The experiments showed that substantial fractions of corium may be dispersed into the containment in such cases, if the pressure in the reactor coolant system is elevated at the time of RPV failure. Primary system pressures of 1 or 2 MPa are sufficient to lead to full scale DCH effects. Combustion of the hydrogen produced by oxidation as well as the hydrogen initially present appears to be the crucial phenomenon for containment pressurization.     

严重事故条件下安全壳响应模拟研究

压水堆核电厂发生严重事故期间,从主系统释放的蒸汽、氢气以及下封头失效后进入安全壳的堆芯熔融物均对安全壳的完整性构成威胁。以国内典型二代加压水堆为研究对象,采用MAAP程序进行安全壳响应分析。选取了两种典型的严重事故序列：热管段中破口叠加设备冷却水失效和再循环高压安注失效,堆芯因冷却不足升温熔化导致压力容器失效,熔融物与混凝土发生反应（MCCI）,安全壳超压失效;冷管段大破口叠加再循环失效,安全壳内蒸汽不断聚集,发生超压失效。通过对两种事故工况的分析,证实了再循环高压安注、安全壳喷淋这两种缓解措施对保证安全壳完整性的重要作用。     

秦山二期核电站氢气风险的CFD研究

利用计算流体力学(CFD)程序GASFLOW模拟了波动管大破口事故发生后7 000 s内装有22台氢气复合器的秦山二期核电站安全壳内的水蒸汽及氢气行为,得到了不同阶段的特征性流场及氢气浓度的分层情况,给出了所采用的复合器布置方案的稳定消氢速率为20 g/s,并指出了破口所在蒸汽发生器隔间内发生氢气燃烧火焰加速的可能性.同时,计算结果表明,安全壳内构筑物吸热带走了大部分从一回路释放的热量;压力变化同时受气体总质量(主要是水蒸汽质量)与温度的控制.     

小型堆严重事故下安全壳内氢气行为分析

采用MELCOR程序,对小型堆破口叠加全部电源丧失的典型严重事故进行计算,并对安全壳内发生氢气燃烧、爆炸的可能性进行分析。结果表明:主管道直径3.72%的破口叠加全部电源丧失后,堆芯裸露,出现熔堆事故;同时锆水反应产生的大量氢气进入安全壳,使安全壳内氢气含量上升,在安全壳局部空间、屏蔽水箱内出现氢气燃烧。但由于小型堆安全壳净容积较小,水蒸气含量较高,氧气含量较少,不会导致氢气爆炸。     

基于氢气风险分析的ADS手动卸压策略研究

先进非能动压水堆设计采用自动卸压系统(ADS)对一回路进行卸压,严重事故下主控室可手动开启ADS,缓解高压熔堆风险。然而ADS的设计特点可能导致氢气在局部隔间积聚,带来局部氢气风险。本文基于氢气负面效应考虑,对利用ADS进行一回路卸压的策略进行研究,为严重事故管理提供技术支持。选取全厂断电始发的典型高压熔堆严重事故序列,利用一体化事故分析程序,评估手动开启第1~4级ADS、手动开启第1~3级ADS、手动开启第4级ADS 3种方案的卸压效果,并分析一回路卸压对安全壳局部隔间的氢气负面影响。研究结果表明,3种卸压方案均能有效降低一回路压力。但在氢气点火器不可用时,开启第1~3级ADS以及开启第1~4级ADS卸压会引起内置换料水箱隔间氢气浓度迅速增加,可能导致局部氢气燃爆。因此,基于氢气风险考虑,建议在实施严重事故管理导则一回路卸压策略时优先考虑采用第4级ADS进行一回路卸压。     

A study on evaluating a passive autocatalytic recombiner PAR-system in the PWR large-dry containment

A systematic step-by-step framework for analyzing hydrogen behavior and implementing passive autocatalytic recombiners (PARs) to mitigate hydrogen deflagration or detonation risk in severe accidents (SAs) is presented. The procedure can be subdivided into five main steps: (1) modeling the containment based on the plant design characteristics, (2) selecting the typical severe accident sequences, (3) calculating the hydrogen generation including in- and ex-vessel period, (4) modeling the gas distribution in containment atmosphere and estimating the hydrogen combustion modes and (5) evaluating the efficiency of the PAR-system to mitigate the hydrogen risk with and without catalytic recombiners, according to the safety criterion. For the Chinese 600MWe pressurized water reactor (PWR) with a large-dry containment, large break loss-of-coolant accident (LB-LOCA) is screened out as the reference severe accident sequence, considering the nature of hydrogen generation and the probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) result on accident sequences. The results show that a certain number of recombiners could remove effectively hydrogen and oxygen, to protect the containment integrity against hydrogen deflagration or detonation.     

模块式高温气冷堆进水事故后的氢气行为分析

蒸汽发生器两根传热管双端断裂是模块式高温气冷堆（HTR-PM）典型的超设计基准事故,事故可能会导致氢气在反应堆舱室内的聚集,产生爆燃甚至爆轰的风险。本文使用反应堆流体计算程序GASFLOW,模拟了两根传热管断裂后排放到蒸汽发生器舱室以及反应堆舱室内的气体的输运及分布,并利用氢气燃爆分析程序COM3D进行了舱室内的氢气燃烧分析。计算结果表明,两根传热管断裂事故排放的氢气含量很小,舱室内氢气浓度最大不超过0.1%,如此低浓度的氢气不会发生燃烧爆炸。     

The design and evaluation of a passively cooled containment for a high-rating pressurized water reactor

An integrated pressurized water reactor (PWR) containment was conceptualized that allows heat to be rejected passively to the environment. The proposed containment is based on the demonstrated Ebasco Waterford 3 design. The secondary concrete shell was equipped with inlet and outlet vents that create an air-convection annulus. These vents also permit the submersion of the lower part of the primary containment into an external water pool. An internal water pool located at the bottom of the lower containment was added to increase in-containment heat storage. The performance of the proposed passively cooled containment was evaluated using a subdivided volume code, version 3.4e; the relative novelty of subdivided volume analyses for containment performance evaluation requires experimental verification of principal code predictions. Two experiments were carried out; one to test the performance of the external moat, and one to verify the code’s ability to predict thermal-stratification inside the containment. To improve the subdivided-volume simulation of convection-related parameters, a modeling technique (boundary layer flow approximation) was devised. Finally, the behavior of the proposed containment was evaluated for the worst-case large break loss of coolant accident and the worst-case main steam line break accident. Peak pressures remained below 0.45 MPa during both transients; internal wall pressure differences, equipment qualification temperatures, pressure restoration time also remained below design limits. The mitigation capability of hydrogen recombiners was also evaluated.     

Hydrogen management and overpressure protection of the containment for future boiling water reactors

New design and evaluation method for hydrogen management of containment atmosphere have been developed for application in the future boiling water reactor (BWR). These are intended as a part of consideration of severe accidents in the course of design so as to assure a high level of confidence that a large release of radioactivity to the environment that may result in unacceptable social consequences can reasonably be avoided. Emphasis on hydrogen management and protection against overpressure failure is based on the insights from probabilistic safety assessments (PSAs) that late phase overpressure (and associated leakage) and molten corium concrete reaction (MCCI) need attention to ensure that containment remains intact, in case energetic challenges to the containment such as DCH (direct containment heating) or FCI (fuel coolant interactions) are practically eliminated by design or resolved from risk standpoint of view. The authors studied the use of palladium-coated tantalum for hydrogen removal from containment atmosphere in order to avoid pressurization of the containment with small free volume by non-condensable gas and steam. Its effectiveness for ABWR (advanced boiling water reactor) containment was evaluated using laboratory test data. Although further experimental studies are necessary to confirm its effectiveness in real accident conditions, the design is a promising option and one that could be backfitted upon necessity to existing plants for which pressure retaining capability cannot be altered. Also new evaluation method for flammability control under severe accident conditions was developed. This method employes a realistic assessment of the amount of oxygen and hydrogen gases generated by radiolytic decomposition of water under severe accident conditions and their subsequent transport from water to containment atmosphere.