An experimental low-pressure facility to study boron transients in the pressurizer of an a integral modular nuclear reactor

• Autor(a) principal: Lapa, Celso Marcelo Franklin
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Outros Autores: Moreira, Maria de Lourdes, Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear
• Tipo de documento: Artigo de conferência
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional do IEN
• Texto Completo: http://carpedien.ien.gov.br:8080/handle/ien/2415
• topic: INAC 2013; Nuclear reactor; Modular reactors

Small and medium size modular reactors offer many advantages when compared with typical nuclear plants in various circumstances, such as offering greater simplicity of design, economy of mass production, and reducing siting costs. The integral configuration is characterized by having most of its components inside the pressure vessel, eliminating the probability of accidents. However, for this configuration there is no spray system for boron homogenization, which may cause power transients. Thus, it is necessary to investigate boron mixing. The Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), in a partnership with the Regional Center of Nuclear Sciences of Northeast (CRCN-NE) and the Nuclear Engineering Institute (IEN/CNEN-RJ), is developing a project that aims to analyze transients in a compact modular integral reactor. This analysis will be made by using the data obtained from one experimental bench that is mounted at CRCN-NE. A study accomplished in 2012 using a simplified bench (built in reduced scale with a test section manufactured with transparent acrylic) showed that it was possible to obtain preliminary experimental results for the boron homogenizing process.