Design of a full scale model fuel assembly for full power production reactor flow excursion experiments

摘要

A novel full scale production reactor fuel assembly model was designed and built to study thermal-hydraulic effects of postulated Savannah River Site (SRS) nuclear reactor accidents. The electrically heated model was constructed to simulate the unique annular concentric tube geometry of fuel assemblies in SRS nuclear production reactors. Several major design challenges were overcome in order to produce the prototypic geometry and thermal-hydraulic conditions. The two concentric heater tubes (total power over 6 MW and maximum heat flux of 3.5 MW/m(sup 2)) (1.1E+6 BTU/(ft(sup 2)hr)) were designed to closely simulate the thermal characteristics of SRS uranium-aluminum nuclear fuel. The paper discusses the design of the model fuel assembly, which met requirements of maintaining prototypic geometric and hydraulic characteristics, and approximate thermal similarity. The model had a cosine axial power profile and the electrical resistance was compatible with the existing power supply. The model fuel assembly was equipped with a set of instruments useful for code analysis, and durable enough to survive a number of LOCA transients. These instruments were sufficiently responsive to record the response of the fuel assembly to the imposed transient.