Supercritical water cooled reactor during LBLOCA

[Jock Flannigan]

Hello,

I was wondering, how would SCWR react during LB LOCA, mainly at the time of a break. There is fast depressurization of cource, but what will happen to reactivity in first few seconds after the break? I would expect to get a two-phase flow fairly soon and then it should be like a normal BWR.

The problem is, there not many tools that can simulate it (TRACE and RELAP do not have SC correlations and only ATHLET has Mokry correlation, which is not very precise).

Or if anyone has any good online materials on SCW, I would really appreciate it (old lectures from Unis etc).

Thanks!

 

[Astronuc]

Ostensibly, a SCWR is designed to scram on a depressurization signal. To simulate a LBLOCA, one would need a system code like RELAP or VIPRE/RETRAN with the appropriate properties. I would image someone has done that. The question then is, has someone published such study? Perhaps in the Gen4 forum.

Meanwhile here are some properties - Thermophysical Properties at Critical and Supercritical Conditions
http://cdn.intechweb.org/pdfs/13204.pdf

http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/supercritical_water.html

There is a paper "Safety analysis code SCTRAN development for SCWR and its application to CGNPC SCWR" in Annals of Nuclear Energy, but it requires purchase.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306454913000455

http://www.osti.gov/scitech/biblio/22107829