Pressure Transient Analysis of Elbow-Pipe Experiments Using the PTA-2 Computer Code

Severe hydraulic transients may be produced in the intermediate heat transport system of a liquid-metal-cooled breeder reactor by a sodium/water reaction in a failed steam generator. The PTA-2 computer code has been developed to analyze these transients, including the effects of plastic deformation of the piping and cavitation on pulse propagation. Comparisons are shown between PTA-2 predictions and the results of two experiments performed at Stanford Research Institute. Piping was plastically deformed by a pressure pulse traversing the experimental system, and the resulting rarefaction waves caused cavitation to occur. Excellent agreement between computation and experiment was obtained for dynamic strain and pressure distributions and the location and duration of the cavitation. The effect of elbow curvature on pulse propagation was found to be masked by pipe plasticity effects.