Analysis of Water Hammer due to Sudden Rupture of Reactor Coolant System

In this article we have analyzed the most severe design accident for the reactor facility — sudden rupture of the primary cooling loop. This rupture causes a water hammer event for the reactor core barrel, which is a significant but short term load. Assuming that core barrel is a thin shell, we have performed dynamic stress and strain calculations in the frequency domain. The Duhamel integral was used to calculate the transient response of a shell to an impulse load caused by the water hammer event. The results obtained were used to estimate structural stability of the core barrel.