Experimental Investigations on the Isolation Condenser Performance in Integral Test Loop

The proposed Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) is a light water cooled and heavy water moderated pressure tube type boiling water reactor based on natural circulation. AHWR adopts several passive concepts with a view to simplify the design and to enhance safety and public acceptability. One such feature is passive decay heat removal using isolation condenser (IC) system during a station blackout. A scaled Integral Test Loop (ITL) was set up in BARC to simulate the overall system behavior studies for Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). This facility simulates the Main Heat Transport System (MHTS), Emergency Core Cooling System (ECCS) and Isolation Condenser system (ICS) system, Feed Water System (FWS) and the associated controls. Power to volume scaling philosophy has been adopted for the design of the ITL systems. To evaluate the performance of IC, experiments have been carried out in ITL. The test results have been simulated using RELAP5/ MOD3.2. This paper deals with the experiments conducted, nodalization scheme adopted for ITL in RELAP5/MOD 3.2 simulation, transient predictions made and the results obtained in detail.