Studies on the Effects of Blockage Upon LWR Emergency Core Cooling Systems. Vol. 2

摘要

Ballooning of the zircaloy cladding of PWR fuel pins could occur during a conservatively calculated large break LOCA. This report is Part 3 of three reports which describe the experimental data obtained in a 44 rod bundle with and without localised coplanar blockages under conditions relevant to the reflood phase of a LOCA. The various thermohydraulic effects are investigated separately, as far as possible, in a unique series of tests of increasing complexity proceeding from single to two phase conditions as follows: isothermal air flow tests, used to infer single phase mass flow distribution; steady state steam flow tests, used to quantify single phase heat transfer; steam and drop tests, in which a dispersed flow of well specified inlet conditions is created by injecting water drops into the subchannel centres between the rods with a co-current steam flow; and finally conventional reflood tests. This report makes an extensive presentation of data obtained from a bundle containing a centrally placed 4 x 4 array of balloon shapes. The balloon sleeves were hydraulically formed to give a wall thickness of 0.325 mm typical of reactor fuel pin balloons. They were 196 mm long with a maximum subchannel blockage of 61% over a 175 mm length. 6 refs., 15 tabl., 134 figs. (ERA citation 11:029841)