State-Of-The-Art and Review of Condensation Heat Transfer for Small Modular Reactor Passive Safety: Experimental Studies

Abstract

This study focused on state-of-the-art and review of condensation heat transfer for small modular reactors (SMR). Nuclear reactors adopt passive containment cooling systems (PCCS) for accident mitigation, containment integrity, and primarily to maintain the last barrier for radioactive particle release to the environment during and beyond design-basis accidents. However, improving the effectiveness of the PCCS is more critical for the SMR than for commercial reactors to ensure higher safety margins and compactness. In the PCCS of SMR, due to its smaller size containment, the filmwise condensation (FWC) is dominant. Therefore, this study emphasized the FWC. Earlier condensation studies for the PCCS did not make SMR the primary focus, so a critical review for formulating the state-of-the-art was necessary. Part-1 of this study covered the review of physics phenomena, previous experimental studies with a brief overview of associated test facilities and empirical correlations. This study identified a research gap with the condensation test data scaling relations by using the information and findings of the previous PCCS studies and applied them to the SMR system.

Department(s)

Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science

Keywords and Phrases

Condensation; Experiment; Heat transfer; Safety; Small modular reactor

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0017-9310

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2023 Elsevier, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

15 Aug 2022

Link to Full Text

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