• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1134-1145
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• 2021

A design parameter study is presented for the closed-loop type passive containment cooling system (PCCS) which is equipped with two heat exchangers: one installed at the inside of the containment and the other submerged in the water pool at the outside of the containment. A GOTHIC code model for PCCS performance analyses was set up and the design parameters such as the heat exchanger sizes, locations, and water pool tank volumes were analyzed to investigate the feasibility of installing this type of PCCS in PWRs like OPR-1000 being operated in Korea. We identified the size of the circulation loop and heat exchangers as major design parameters affecting the performance of PCCS. The analyses showed that the heat exchangers in the inside of the containment would be more influential on the heat removal capability of PCCS than that installed in the water pool at the outside of the containment. Hence, it was recommended to down-size the heat exchangers in the water pool to optimize PCCS without compromising its performance. Based on the parametric study, it was demonstrated that a closed-loop type PCCS could be designed sufficiently compact for installation in the available space within the containment of PWRs like OPR-1000.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.92-98
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• 2018

The flow of cooling water in a passive containment cooling system (PCCS), used to remove heat released in design basis accidents from a concrete containment of light water nuclear power plant, was conducted in order to investigate the thermo-fluid equilibrium among many parallel tubes of PCCS. Numerical simulations of the subcooled boiling flow within a coolant loop of a PCCS, which will be installed in innovative pressurized-water reactor (PWR), were conducted using the commercially available computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS-CFX. Shear stress transport (SST) and the RPI model were used for turbulence closure and subcooled flow boiling, respectively. As the first step, the simplified geometry of PCCS with 36 tubes was modeled in order to reduce computational resource. Even and uneven thermal loading conditions were applied at the outer walls of parallel tubes for the simulation of the coolant flow in the PCCS at the initial phase of accident. It was observed that the natural circulation maintained in single-phase for all even and uneven thermal loading cases. For uneven thermal loading cases, coolant velocity in each tube were increased according to the applied heat flux. However, the flows were mixed well in the header and natural circulation of the whole cooling loop was not affected by uneven thermal loading significantly.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.81-88
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• 2010

This study compared the feasibility of utilizing a wood bioenergy system over a conventional central heating and cooling system and a cogeneration system in an apartment complex. The performance of the three systems were compared in the following areas: energy consumption, environmental impact(output of CO2, CH4, and N2O), and life cycle cost. The results showed that energy performance of the wood bioenergy system was similar to the conventional central system (just a 1% improvement) but the cogeneration system showed a 12% reduction in energy consumption compared to the conventional system. In terms of environmental impact, the bioenergy system reduced pollutants by 50% while the cogeneration system reduced pollutants by 30% compared to the conventional system. Life cycle cost analysis indicated bioenergy and cogeneration to have an 8% and 19% improvement over the conventional system. The findings of the study suggest that it is both economically and environmentally beneficial to use a wood bioenergy system in place of a conventional central heating and cooling system in apartment complexes.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.96-104
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• 2020

The numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the thermal-fluid phenomena occurred inside the experimental apparatus during a PCCS, used to remove heat released in accidents from a containment of light water nuclear power plant, operation. Numerical simulations of the flow and heat transfer caused by wall condensation inside the containment simulation vessel (CSV), which equipped with 18 vertical heat exchanger tubes, were conducted using the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS-CFX. Shear stress transport (SST) and the wall condensation model were used for turbulence closure and wall condensation, respectively. The simulation using the actual size of the apparatus. However, rather than simulating the whole experimental apparatus in consideration of the experimental cases, calculation resources, and calculation time, the simulation model was prepared only in CSV. Selective simulation was conducted to verify the effects of non-condensable gas(NC gas) concentration, CSV internal pressure, and wall sub-cooling conditions. First, as a result of the internal flow of CSV, it was observed that downward flow due to condensation occurred surface of the vertical tube and upward flow occurred in the distant place. Natural convection occurred actively around the heat exchanger tube. Due to this rising and falling internal flow, natural circulation occurred actively around the heat exchanger tubes. Next, in order to check the performance of built-in condensation model using according to the non-condensable gas concentration, CSV internal flow and wall sub-cooling, the heat flux values were compared with the experimental results. On average, the results were underestimated with and error of about 25%. In addition, the influence of CSV internal pressure and wall sub-cooling was small, but when the condensate was highly generated due to the low non-condensable gas concentration, the error was large compared to the experimental values. This is considered to be due to the nature of the condensation model of the CFX code. However, in spite of the limitations of CFD, it is valid to use the built-in condensation model of CFD for PCCS performance prediction from a conservative perspective.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.1
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• pp.37-50
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• 2020

A passive containment cooling system (PCCS) has been developed as advanced safety feature for innovative power reactor (iPOWER). Passive systems are inherently less stable than active systems and the PCCS encountered the flashing-induced instability previously identified. The objective of this study is to develop stability maps for flashing-induced instability using MARS (Multi-dimensional Analysis of Reactor Safety) code. Firstly, we conducted a series of sensitivity analysis to see the effects of time step size, nodalization, and alternative MARS user options on the onset of flashing-induced instability. The riser nodalization strongly affects the prediction of flashing in a long riser of the PCCS, while time step size and alternative user options do not. Based on the sensitivity analysis, a standard input and an analysis methodology were set up to develop the stability maps of PCCS. We found out that the calculated equilibrium quality at the exit of the riser as a stability boundary above 5 kW/㎡ was approximately 1.2%, which was in good agreement with Furuya's results. However, in case of a very low heat flux condition, the onset of instability occurred at the lower equilibrium quality. In addition, it was confirmed that inlet throttling reduces the unstable region.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.103-110
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• 2019

The domestic innovative power reactor named iPOWER will employ the passive molten corium cooling system(PMCCS) to cool down and stabilize the core melt in the severe accident. The final design concept of the PMCCS is yet to be determined, but the in-vessel retention through external reactor vessel cooling has been also considered as a viable strategy to cope with the severe accident. In this study, the two-phase natural circulation flow established between the reactor vessel and the insulation was simulated using a thermal-hydraulic system code, MARS-KS. The flow path of cooling water was modeled with one-dimensional nodes, and the boundary condition of the heat load from the molten core was defined to estimate the naturally-driven flow rate. The evolution of major thermal-hydraulic parameters were also evaluated, including the temperature and the level of cooling water, the void fraction around the lower head of the reactor vessel, and the heat transfer mode on its external surface.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.8
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• pp.2499-2508
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• 2021

Passive containment cooling systems (PCCSs) have been actively studied to improve the inherent safety of nuclear power plants. Hered, we present two concepts, open-loop PCCS (OL-PCCS) and closed-loop PCCS (CL-PCCS), applicable to the PWR with a concrete-type containment. We analyzed the heat-removal performance and flow instability of these PCCS concepts using the GOTHIC code. In both cases, PCCS performance improved when a passive containment cooling heat exchanger (PCCX) was installed in the lower part of the containment building. The OL-PCCS was found to be superior in terms of heat-removal performance. However, in terms of flow instability, the OL-PCCS was more vulnerable than the CL-PCCS. In particular, the possibility of flow instability was higher when the PCCX was installed in the upper part of the containment. Therefore, the installation location of the OL-PCCS should be restricted to minimize flow instability. Conversely, a CL-PCCS can be installed without any positional restriction by adjusting the initial system pressure within the loop, which eliminates flow instability. These results could be used as base data for the thermo-hydraulic evaluation of PCCS in PWR with a large dry concrete-type containment.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.3196-3206
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• 2021

For the Korean design of the PCCS (passive containment cooling system) in an innovative PWR, the overall thermal resistance around a condenser tube is dominated by the heat transfer coefficient of steam condensation on the exterior surface. It has been reported, however, that the calculated heat transfer coefficients by thermal-hydraulic system codes were much lower than measured data in separate effect tests. In this study, a new empirical model of steam condensation in the presence of a noncondensable gas was implemented into the MARS-KS 1.4 code to replace the conventional Colburn-Hougen model. The selected correlation had been developed from condensation test data obtained at the JERICHO (JNU Experimental Rig for Investigation of Condensation Heat transfer On tube) facility, and considered the effect of the Grashof number for naturally circulating gas mixture and the curvature of the condenser tube. The modified MARS-KS code was applied to simulate the transient response of the containment equipped with the PCCS to the large-break loss-of-coolant accident. The heat removal performances of the PCCS and corresponding evolution of the containment pressure were compared to those calculated via the original model. Various thermal-hydraulic parameters associated with the natural circulation operation through the heat transport circuit were also investigated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.60-72
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• 2019

The air-cooled passive decay heat removal system (APDHR) was proposed to provide the ultimate heat sink for non-LOCA accidents. The APDHR is a modified one of Passive Auxiliary Feed-water system (PAFS) installed in APR+. The PAFS has a heat exchanger in the Passive Condensate Cooling Tank (PCCT) and can remove decay heat for 8 h. After that, the heat transfer rate through the PAFS drastically decreases because the heat transfer condition changes from water to air. The APDHR with a vertical heat exchanger in PCCT will be able to remove the decay heat by air if it has sufficient natural convection in PCCT. We conducted the thermal-hydraulic simulation by the MARS code to investigate the behavior of the APR + selected as a reference plant for the simulation. The simulation contains two phases based on water depletion: the early phase and the late phase. In the early phase, the volume of water in PCCT was determined to avoid the water depletion in three days after shutdown. In the late phase, when the number of the HXs is greater than 4089 per PCCT, the MARS simulation confirmed the long-term cooling by air is possible under extended Station Blackout (SBO).

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2001.07d
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• pp.2446-2448
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• 2001

In addition to the stabilization of electricity supply and the quality management of electricity, load balance has been an important strategy for achieving high quality load management. Among many techniques for load management, direct load management has been actively studied and applied for increasing the efficiency of power facility and suppressing peak load. In Korea, the highest peak load is demanded in summer rather than in winter, and almost 50% of the peak load comes from cooling load. Currently, applicable systems are limited to air conditioners that have the cooling capacity less than 2kW. This paper describes the development of remote controlled air conditioners and the result of the field test of the new type air conditioner. The technical specification based on the test will be applied to the new model of the remote controlled air conditioner. The wide distribution of the air conditioners to the public will be helpful to control peak demand due to cooling load in summer time. Financial investment to generating, transmission, distribution facilities will be decreased from flatting the seasonal power load.