http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
Experimental and Computational Study of a Scaled Reactor Cavity Cooling System
The Very High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (VHTR) is one of the next generation nuclear reactors designed to achieve high temperatures to support industrial applications and power generation. The Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) is a passive safety system that will be incorporated in the VTHR, designed to remove the heat from the reactor cavity and maintain the temperature of structures and concrete walls under desired limits during normal operation and accident scenarios. A small scale (1:23) water-cooled experimental facility was scaled, designed, and constructed in order to study the complex thermohydraulic phenomena taking place in the RCCS during steady-state and transient conditions. The facility represents a portion of the reactor vessel with nine stainless steel coolant risers and utilizes water as coolant. The facility was equipped with instrumentation to measure temperatures and flow rates and a general verification was completed during the shakedown. A model of the experimental facility was prepared using RELAP5-3D and simulations were performed to validate the scaling procedure. The overall behavior of the facility met the expectations. The steady-state condition was achieved and the facility capabilities were confirmed to be very promising in performing additional experimental tests, including flow visualization, and produce data for code validation. The experimental data produced during the steady-state run were successfully compared with the simulation results obtained using RELAP5-3D, confirming the capabilities of the system code of simulating the thermal-hydraulic phenomena occurring in the reactor cavity. The electronic version of this dissertation is accessible from http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/151742
Doctor of Philosophy Texas A & M University 2013 http://hdl.handle.net/1969.1/151742