Preliminary Analysis of the Post-Disassembly Expansion Phase and Structural Response Under Unprotected Loss of Flow Accident in Prototype Sodium Cooled Fast Reactor

For the prototype sodium-cooled fast reactor, MONJU, the mechanical energy and structural response under energetics caused by neutronic power excursion during Unprotected Loss of Flow accident (ULOF) were preliminarily analyzed. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the integrity of the reactor vessel against the mechanical load induced by the energetics. Conservative energy production was assumed in order to confirm the robustness of the safety design of MONJU. Mechanical energy was evaluated with the code in which mechanistic modelling of core expansion was implemented. The mechanical energy, which were obtained by analyzing the expanding behavior of core materials after energetics, were about one order of magnitude below the thermodynamic work potential calculated by assuming isentropic expansion of the fuel vapor to one atmosphere, which was often used as an indicator to express the severity of the energetics. Structural integrity was then evaluated with coupled fluid-structure dynamics code using the obtained mechanical energy. No or very small circumferential residual strain of the reactor vessel was evaluated in most analytical cases, and even in the most conservative energy production case, the residual strain was only 0.008 % so that the integrity of the reactor vessel is maintained. The result obtained in the present study shows that MONJU has enough robustness against the mechanical load under energetics.