Abstract
A control element drive mechanism(CEDM) is a reactor regulating system, which inserts, withdraws or maintains a control rod containing a neutron absorbing material within a reactor core to control the reactivity of the core. The ball-screw type CEDM for the integral reactor has a spring-damper system to reduce the impact force due to the scram of the CEDM. This paper describes the experimental results to obtain the drop and damping characteristics of the CEDM. The drop tests are performed by using a drop test rig and a facility. A drop time and a displacement after an impact are measured using a LVDT. The influences of the rod weight, the drop height and the flow area of hydraulic damper on the drop and damping behavior are also estimated on the basis of test results. The drop time of the control element is within 4.5s to meet the design requirement, and the maximum displacement is measured as 15.6 mm. It is also found that the damping system using a spring-hydraulic damper plays a good damper role in the CEDM.