Combustion of stratified hydrogen-air mixtures in the 10.7 m combustion test facility cylinder

This paper presents preliminary results from hydrogen concentration gradient combustion experiments in a 10.7 m³ cylinder. These gradients, also referred to as stratified mixtures, were formed from dry mixtures of hydrogen and air at atmospheric temperature. Combustion pressures, burn fractions and flame speeds in concentration gradients were compared with combustion of well-mixed gases containing equivalent amounts of hydrogen. The studied variables included the quantity of hydrogen in the vessel, the steepness of the concentration gradient, the igniter location, and the initial concentration of hydrogen at the bottom of the vessel.Gradients of hydrogen and air with average concentrations of hydrogen below the downward propagation limit produced significantly greater combustion pressures when ignited at the top of the vessel than well-mixed gases with the same quantity of hydrogen. This was the result of considerably higher burn fractions in the gradients than in the well-mixed gas tests. Above the downward propagation limit, gradients of hydrogen ignited at the top of the vessel produced nearly the same combustion pressures as under well-mixed conditions; both gradients and well-mixed gases had high burn fractions. Much higher flame speeds were observed in the gradients than the well-mixed gases.Gradients and well-mixed gases containing up to 14% hydrogen ignited at the bottom of the vessel produced nearly the same combustion pressures. Above 14%, hydrogen, gradients produced lower combustion pressures than well-mixed gases having the same quantity of hydrogen. This can be attributed to lower burn fractions of fuel from the gradients compared with well-mixed gases with similar quantities of hydrogen. When ignited at the bottom of the vessel, 90%, of a gradient's gases remained unburned until several seconds after ignition. The remaining gases were then consumed at a very fast rate.     

基于火焰加速和燃爆转变准则的氢气点火安全性研究

采用点火器对可燃混合气体进行预先点火是严重事故下的1种可供选择的氢气缓解措施。基于σ准则和λ准则可以评估氢气燃烧时发生火焰加速(FA)和爆燃向爆炸的转变(DDT)的可能性。本文分析密闭房间中氢气早期和晚期点火的过程。分析结果表明，点火器在空间的合理布置和初次点火时间的控制，可有效移除事故前期的氢气。本方法能用于确定核电站干式安全壳内氢气点火器的数量、位置和点火时间。     

水蒸气对氢气燃烧影响的数值研究

核电站严重事故下,氢气的燃烧风险是影响安全壳完整性的重要因素,而水蒸气的存在对氢气、空气混合气体的燃烧会产生重要的影响。本文采用CAST3M软件,对局部小空间内氢气的燃烧特性以及水蒸气的影响进行研究。首先对THAI装置的典型实验工况进行模拟,表明了相关燃烧模型的可用性。然后将高度为6 m、直径为2.2 m的圆柱空间作为燃烧域,对其分别计算了8%、10%、12%氢气浓度下的燃烧,并与添加25%水蒸气的相应工况进行了对比。通过对燃烧域的温度、压力以及火焰传播速度的分析,表明添加水蒸气后燃烧产生的最大压力下降,火焰的最大温度下降,火焰传播的速度下降。研究表明,水蒸气的存在对氢气的燃烧具有抑制作用,能有效降低氢气燃烧产生的后果。     

Experimental analysis of heat transfer within the AP600 containment under postulated accident conditions

The new AP600 reactor designed by Westinghouse uses a passive safety system relying on heat removal by condensation to keep the containment within the design limits of pressure and temperature. Even though some research has been done so far in this regard, there are some uncertainties concerning the behavior of the system under postulated accident conditions. In this paper, steam condensation onto the internal surfaces of the AP600 containment walls has been investigated in two scaled vessels with similar aspect ratios to the actual AP600. The heat transfer degradation in the presence of noncondensable gas has been analyzed for different noncondensable mixtures of air and helium (hydrogen simulant). Molar fractions of noncondensables/steam ranged from (0.4–4.0) and helium concentrations in the noncondensable mixture were 0–50% by volume. In addition, the effects of the bulk temperatures, the mass fraction of noncondensable/steam, the cold wall surface temperature, the pressure, noncondensable composition, and the inclination of the condensing surface were studied. It was found that the heat transfer coefficients ranged from 50 to 800 J s⁻¹ K⁻¹ m⁻² with the highest for high wall temperatures at high pressure and low noncondensable molar fractions. The effect of a light gas (helium) in the noncondensable mixture were found to be negligible for concentrations less than approximately 35 molar percent but could result in stratification at higher concentrations. The complete study gives a large and relatively complete data base on condensation within a scaled AP600 containment structure, providing an invaluable set of data against which to validate models. In addition, specific areas requiring further investigation are summarized.     

核反应堆冷却剂丧失事故下喷淋液滴特性研究

在核反应堆发生冷却剂丧失事故（LOCA）时,大量质能释放到安全壳内,通过喷淋能有效降低安全壳内的温度及压力。考虑喷淋液滴下落过程中体积、质量、温度及阻力系数的变化,应用对流传热及传质关联式,计算得到液滴与周围介质的传热、传质特性。计算结果与TOSQAN试验对比符合较好。对不同液滴尺寸、不同环境压力及蒸汽未达到饱和的情况进行了计算,分析了喷淋的影响,结果可为喷淋系统的设计与应用提供一定的理论依据。     

Sodium spray fires

The experimental and theoretical evidence on the behavior of sodium spray fires in closed vessels is reviewed for applicability to LMFBR containment. Only when the liquid sodium is explosively ejected at very high velocities into air do the experimental pressure and temperature increases approach those predicted from thermodynamic considerations alone. In all other cases, the peak pressures are substantially less than the thermodynamic limit, especially when sodium droplets of the sizes expected in LMFBR accidents are used.     

Performance Test of the Quenching Meshes for Hydrogen Control

The quenching distance of hydrogen gas was experimentally investigated by considering the effects of the initial pressure and steam addition. The quenching distance decreases with the initial pressure and there is a little increase with the addition of steam. Performance tests have been carried out to check the applicability of quenching mesh for the purpose of arresting hydrogen flame propagation during a severe accident in nuclear power plants. The experimental facility for the performance test of the quenching mesh consisted of a model compartment, a visualization system and an ignition system. Dimensions of the single model compartment were 300x300x300 mm. Three-compartments are connected in parallel. The quenching mesh is located between the first and second compartments. It was observed that the flame from the first compartment where the ignition starts does not propagate to the second compartment. The quenching mesh played a role of preventing flame propagation.     

Calculations of hydrogen detonations in nuclear containments by the random choice method

Computer codes were developed for the prediction of pressure histories at different points of a nuclear containment wall due to postulated internal hydrogen detonations. These pressure histories are required to assess the structural response of a nuclear containment to hydrogen detonations. The compressible flow equations including detonation, which was treated as a sharp fluid discontinuity, were solved by the random choice method which reproduces maximum pressures and discontinuities sharply. The computer codes were validated by calculating pressure profiles and maximum wall pressures for plane and spherical geometries and comparing the results with exact analytic solutions. The two-dimensional axisymmetric program was used to calculate wall pressure histories in an actual nuclear containment. The numerical results for wall pressures are presented in a dimensionless form, which allows their use for different combinations of hydrogen concentration, and initial conditions.     

氢气-空气混合气体燃烧特性试验分析

为了保证严重事故下安全壳的完整性,氢气点火器燃烧缓解措施被广泛应用于核电站内。本文在1个20m3立式圆柱罐体内进行9.28%浓度下的氢气燃烧试验,结合GASFLOW数值模拟和其他试验数据,对本次试验结果进行了综合分析。试验和模拟结果均表明:9.28%浓度下氢气完全燃烧,罐体内温度和压力快速增加;燃烧过程中罐体内高温气体通过辐射传热、对流换热和相变传热3种方式向罐体结构散热,使得罐体内温度和压力随时间逐渐降低,达到泄压和冷却的作用;燃烧过程有明显的方向性,即点燃后火焰在浮力作用下沿罐体中心线向上传播,到达顶部后转而沿罐体四周向下燃烧,燃烧初期火焰速度为11.15m/s;试验中由于内部构件的影响,火焰传播更为复杂。     

Flame-quenching model of the quenching mesh for H2–air mixtures

A deflagration to detonation transition (DDT) occurrence is one of the most important issues concerning safety during severe accidents in nuclear power plants because it can damage the integrity of the containment. It is possible to arrest the acceleration of a flame which can cause DDT by installing quenching meshes between the compartments. To evaluate the applicability of a quenching mesh to nuclear power plants, it requires a means to evaluate a flame arrest of a quenching mesh under a given combustion condition. The flame-quenching models developed by previous researchers were derived to fit the experimental geometry and to consider various thermal boundary conditions from a flame to the mesh wall. Flame-quenching tests were carried out at the 10% hydrogen concentration in a dry air by changing atmospheric pressure to 2.2 bar as the initial pressure. The quenching criterion of a quenching mesh with a 0.3 mm gap distance for hydrogen–air mixtures is established by using the experimental data. The flame-quenching models are also evaluated by using the experimental data. A flame-quenching model that can be used to evaluate a flame arrest for various hydrogen–air mixtures in nuclear power plants is proposed.     

Experimental investigation in the TOSQAN facility of heat and mass transfers in a spray for containment application

TOSQAN is an experimental program undertaken by the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) in order to perform thermal hydraulic containment studies. The TOSQAN facility is a large enclosure devoted to simulate typical accidental thermal hydraulic flow conditions in nuclear-pressurized water reactor (PWR) containment. The TOSQAN facility which is highly instrumented with non-intrusive optical diagnostics is particularly adapted to nuclear safety CFD code validation. The present work is devoted to studying the interaction of a water spray injection used as a mitigation means in order to reduce the gas pressure and temperature in the containment, to produce gases mixing and washout of fission products. In order to have a better understanding of heat and mass transfers between spray droplets and the gas mixture, and to analyze mixing effects due to spray activation, we perform detailed characterization of the two-phase flow.     

Modelling of sprays in containment applications with A CMFD code

During the course of a hypothetical severe accident in a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), spray systems are used in the containment in order to prevent overpressure in case of a steam line break, and to enhance the gas mixing in case of the presence of hydrogen.In the frame of the Severe Accident Research Network (SARNET) of the 6th EC Framework Programme, two tests was produced in the TOSQAN facility in order to study the spray behaviour under severe accident conditions: TOSQAN 101 and TOSQAN 113.The TOSQAN facility is a closed cylindrical vessel. The inner spray system is located on the top of the enclosure on the vertical axis. For the TOSQAN 101 case, an initial pressurization in the vessel is performed with superheated steam up to 2.5 bar. Then, steam injection is stopped and spraying starts simultaneously at a given water temperature (around 25 °C) and water mass flow-rate (around 30 g/s). The depressurization transient starts and continues until the equilibrium phase, which corresponds to the stabilization of the average temperature and pressure of the gaseous mixture inside the vessel.The purpose of the TOSQAN 113 cold spray test is to study helium mixing due to spray activation without heat and mass transfers between gas and droplets.We present in this paper the spray modelling implemented in NEPTUNE_CFD, a three-dimensional multi-fluid code developed especially for nuclear reactor applications. A new model dedicated to the droplet evaporation at the wall is also detailed. Keeping in mind the Best Practice Guidelines,¹ closure laws have been selected to ensure a grid-dependence as weak as possible.For the TOSQAN 113 case, the time evolution of the helium volume fraction calculated shows that the physical approach described in the paper is able to reproduce the mixing of helium by the spray. The prediction of the transient behaviour should be improved by including in the model corrections based on better understanding of the influence of the dispersed phase on the turbulence of the continuous phase.For the TOSQAN 101 case, droplet velocity, steam volume fraction and gas temperature profiles compare favourably with the experimental results. In the frame of the SARNET network, the results obtained with the physical modelling implemented in the NEPTUNE_CFD code reproduce correctly the entrainment phenomena and the condensation zone (Malet and Métier, 2007).     

Effect of spray on performance of the hydrogen mitigation system during LB-LOCA for CPR1000 NPP

During the course of the hypothetical large break loss-of-coolant accident (LB-LOCA) in a nuclear power plant (NPP), hydrogen is generated by a reaction between steam and the fuel-cladding inside the reactor pressure vessel (RPV). It is then ejected from the break into the containment along with a large amount of steam. Management of hydrogen safety and prevention of over-pressurization could be implemented through a hydrogen mitigation system (HMS) and spray system in CPR1000 NPP. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code GASFLOW is utilized in this study to analyze the spray effect on the performance of HMS during LB-LOCA. Results show that as a kind of HMS, deliberate igniter system (DIS) could initiate hydrogen combustion immediately after the flammability limit of the gas mixture has been reached. However, it will increase the temperature and pressure drastically. Operating the DIS under spray condition could result in hydrogen combustion being suppressed by suspended droplets inside the containment. Furthermore, the droplets could also mitigate local the temperature rise. Operation of a PAR system, another kind of HMS, consumes hydrogen steadily with a lower recombination rate which is not affected noticeably by the spray system. Numerical results indicate that the dual concept, namely the integrated application of DIS and PAR systems, is a constructive improvement for hydrogen safety under spray condition during LB-LOCA.     

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.     

Visualizing an ignition process of hydrogen jets containing sodium mist by high-speed imaging

In severe accident scenarios for sodium-cooled fast reactors, it is desirable to gradually consume hydrogen generated by various ex-vessel phenomena without posting a challenge to containment integrity. An effective means is combustion of hydrogen jets containing sodium vapor and mist, but previous studies have been limited to determining ignition thresholds experimentally. The aim of this study was to visualize the ignition process in detail to investigate the ignition mechanism of hydrogen–sodium mixed jets. The ignition experiments of the hydrogen jet containing sodium mist were carried out under a condition of little turbulence. The ignition process was measured with an optical measurement system comprised of a high-speed camera and an image intensifier, and a spatial distribution of luminance was analyzed by image processing. Detail observation revealed that sodium mist particles burned as scattering sparks inside the jet and that hydrogen ignited around the mist particles. Additionally, the experimental results and a simple heat balance calculation indicated that the combustion heat of sodium mist particles could ignite the hydrogen as the heterogeneous ignition source in the fuel temperature range where the mist particle formation was promoted.     

Leakage behavior of inflatable seals subject to severe accident conditions

The paper describes tests to determine the leakage behavior of inflatable seals when subjected to containment pressures that exceed the design basis.² Inflatable seals are used to prevent leakage around personnel and escape lock doors in about 10% of the commercial nuclear power plant containment structures in the United States. All of the installations are in either Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) or Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) Mark-Ill type containments. This work is a part of an overall effort at Sandia National Laboratories to develop proven techniques for evaluating the performance of Light Water Reactor (LWR) containment buildings for beyond design basis loadings.Inflatable seals were tested at both room temperature and at elevated temperatures representative of postulated severe accident conditions. Parameters that were monitored and recorded during each test were the internal seal pressure and temperature, chamber (containment) pressure, leakage past the seals, and temperature of the test chamber and fixture to which the seals were attached. An empirically based, analytical method is presented to predict the containment pressure at which significant leakage past inflatable seals can be expected.     

严重事故下喷淋模式的研究

核电厂发生严重事故后,安全壳内有可能堆积大量的氢气,如果此时不适宜地投入喷淋,会破坏安全壳内的惰性环境而引起氢气燃烧或者爆炸,甚至导致安全壳失效。为避免氢燃,研究者通过合理的假设,根据相关的实验公式,推导出不同氢气产量下安全壳内压力所需满足的条件,获得了根据安全壳内压力值来指导喷淋开闭的保守的控制模式。文章以大亚湾核电站为分析对象,利用MELCOR来进行分析,验证了此控制模式的可行性,并讨论了堆腔注水、氢气自燃以及安全壳底板成分对制订喷淋模式的影响。     

严重事故下喷淋模式的研究

核电厂发生严重事故后．安全壳内有可能堆积大量的氢气．如果此时不适宜地投入喷淋．会破坏安全壳内的惰性环境而引起氢气燃烧或者爆炸．甚至导致安全壳失效。为避免氢燃．本文通过合理的假设．根据相关的实验公式推导出不同氢气产量下安全壳内压力所需满足的条件,获得了根据安全壳内压力值来指导喷淋开闭的保守的控制模式。本文以大亚湾核电站为分析对象,利用MELCOR来进行分析．验证了此控制模式的可行性．并讨论了堆腔注水、氢气自燃以及安全壳底板成分对制订喷淋模式的影响。     

A study on the hydrogen recombination rates of catalytic recombiners and deliberate ignition

A study is being carried out by the Department of Nuclear and Mechanical Constructions at the University of Pisa on catalytic recombiners and on deliberately induced weak deflagration. These are the most practical methods for recombining hydrogen released into large nuclear containments during severe accidents. The recombination rates of different types of catalytic device were obtained from a thorough analysis of published experimental data. The main parameter that affects the effectiveness of these devices seems to be the molar density of the deficiency reactant rather than its volumetric concentration. The recombination rate of weak deflagrations in vented compartments has been assessed with experimental tests carried out in a small-scale glass vessel. Through a computerized system of analysis of video recordings of the deflagrations, the flame surface and the burnt gas volume were obtained as functions of time. These values of flame surface and burnt gas volume were used as inputs for a computer code to calculate the recombining rate, the burning velocity and the pressure transient in the experimental test. The code is being validated with a methodology principally based on a comparison of the measurements of pressure with the calculated values.     

Conservative estimates for dynamic containment loads from hydrogen combustions

For the design of severe accident resistant reactor containments estimates are needed for limiting dynamic loads from hydrogen combustion processes. This paper presents some first exploratory results.The approach for a systematic study of dynamic loads from large scale hydrogen detonations is described. The parameter range of H₂-steam-air detonations is defined and then narrowed down to the region which seems accessible in severe reactor accidents. Maximum possible hydrogen masses, unfavorable hydrogen distributions and limiting detonation cases are discussed. The effect of gas composition, geometry, and scale on detonation pressurs and impulses was investigated with one-dimensional calculations. An accident scenario which combines many conservative parameters was analyzed. The one-dimensional modeling, which contains a high degree of conservatism, resulted in 10.5 MPa peak pressure and 60 kPa s reflected impulse (at 30 ms) over approx. 1400 m² containment surface.