Dynamic Simulation Research on Primary Coolant System of Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor

The Chinese Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) is a 65MWt/20MWe sodium cooled fast reactor. It is a pool-type reactor where the reactor and other internals such as pumps and intermediate heat exchangers (IHX) are immersed in a sodium pool. In this paper a one-dimensional dynamic code was developed to model the primary sodium circuit which included the reactor core, IHX, pumps, hot and cold pool etc. Moreover, the model of the property of sodium flow and heat transfer correlations was collected and compiled. This paper also discusses the mathematical models of various components of the primary sodium circuit, the numerical techniques to solve the models, the thermal-hydraulic studies of some design basis events such as the loss of primary pump or secondary pump accident etc, the comparison of the results of the code with that of the safety analysis report.Studies were conducted simulating both full and low power operating conditions. The dynamic code has been validated, and the results show that it has a benign response to some typical accidents. Finally, the model and code derived in this paper could be used in the safety analysis of pool-type sodium cooled fast reactor, and adopted in the development of CEFR simulation platform.Copyright © 2012 by ASME