Thermal-hydraulic modeling of reactivity accidents in MTR reactors

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a dynamic model for the thermal-hydraulic analysis of MTR research reactors during a reactivity insertion accident. The model is formulated for coupling reactor kinetics with feedback reactivity and reactor core thermal-hydraulics. To represent the reactor core, two types of channels are considered, average and hot channels. The developed computer program is compiled and executed on a personal computer, using the FORTRAN language. The model is validated by safety-related benchmark calculations for MTR-TYPE reactors of IAEA 10 MW generic reactor for both slow and fast reactivity insertion transients. A good agreement is shown between the present model and the benchmark calculations. Then, the model is used for simulating the uncontrolled withdrawal of a control rod of an ETRR-2 reactor in transient with over power scram trip. The model results for ETRR-2 are analyzed and discussed.

Keywords

• reactivity insertion accident
• research reactor
• thermal-hydraulic
• safety analysis