Annals of Nuclear Energy 72 (2014) 189–197

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Annals of Nuclear Energy

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Calculation analysis on the natural circulation of a passive

residual heat removal system for IPWR
Genglei Xia a, Minjun Peng a,⇑, Xue Du b
a
Fundamental Science on Nuclear Safety and Simulation Technology Laboratory, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China
b
College of Automation, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The passive residual heat removal system (PRHRS) is designed to increase the inherent safety features of
Received 2 November 2013 the integrated pressurized water reactor (IPWR). The PRHRS consists of once though steam generator
Received in revised form 18 February 2014 (OTSG) secondary side, a heat exchanger (HX), a cooling water tank (CWT), and corresponding pipes
Accepted 20 February 2014
and valves. On the accident conditions, residual heat is transferred to the CWT by the single-phase nat-
ural circulation in primary loop and two-phase natural circulation in PRHRS loop, and then the water in
CWT is heated and finally evaporates into the air. The calculate results using RELAP5 code show that the
Keywords:
PRHRS is sufficient enough to take heat away from primary coolant system. The effect of main parameters
IPWR
PRHRS
on the PRHRS was studied. The results indicate that the effective height between OTSG and HX, the HX
Natural circulation areas, the volume of CWT, and the isolation valve actuation time are important parameters which are
Residual heat worth being considered seriously in the design of the PRHRS.
Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction variety of passive residual heat removal systems. The PRHRS in

In recent years with the improvement of nuclear safety require-
ments, the new generation of nuclear power plants pays more
attention to its security features in the design process. Especially
after the fukushima accident, people put forward higher request
for the safety of nuclear power plant. For the accidents may be
encountered during the operation of nuclear power plants, the sta-
tion blackout accident remains of great concern in the design of
nuclear power plant. After reactor shutdown, there will still be a
lot of decay heat generation which has the possibility to cause seri-
ous accident, thus the research focuses on the method to remove
this residual heat sufficiently. The traditional emergency water
cooling system is a forced circulation water supply system driven
by the electric pump, which is unavailable when losing electric
power supply. In the design of advanced nuclear power plants,
the passive residual heat removal system (PRHRS) is used to solve
this problem. Based on the passive characteristics of system, such
as the height difference or density difference, the PRHRS could
remove the residual heat under natural convection conditions.
The passive safety technology is required to improve the inher-
ent safety and reliability of nuclear power plants effectively. The
advanced reactor safety system is designed to be composed by a
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 0451 82569611; fax: +86 0451 82569622.
E-mail address: heupmj@163.com (M. Peng).
the design of AP1000 consists of a 100% capacity passive residual
heat removal heat exchanger in the water-filled In-containment
Refueling Water Storage Tank (IRWST), and the C-Tube type heat
exchanger is connected to inlet and outlet lines of one reactor cool-
ant system loop to form a natural circulation loop (Schulz, 2006).
The passive heat removal system of JAERI passive safety reactor
(JPSR) consists of two units of passive residual heat removal loops,
two units of gravity coolant injection pools and six units of air cool-
ers, then the core residual heat can be transferred by natural circu-
lation to the gravity coolant injection pool and finally to the
atmosphere (Iwamura et al., 1995). The PRHRS of the WWER-
1000 consists of four independent trains connected to the four loop
of steam generator respectively (Juhn et al., 2000). The PRHRS of
CPR1000 reactor is linked to the steam generator shell side, which
consists of a heat exchanger (HX), an air cooling tower and an
emergency makeup tank (EMT), and removes the decay heat to
the atmosphere through the natural circulation in both the primary
and PRHRS loops (Zhang et al., 2011). Another novel design of
PRHRS for reactor CPR1000 utilizes a cooling water tank (CWT)
as the heat sink, then the residual heat is transferred to the water
in CWT, and the water is heated and evaporates into the atmo-
sphere (Zhang et al., 2012).
Passive residual heat removal system requires large height dif-
ference between heat source and heat sink in order to improve the
ability of natural circulation. In the design of integrated pressur-

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2014.02.018
0306-4549/Ó 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
190 G. Xia et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 72 (2014) 189–197
ized water reactors, major equipments, such as steam generator,
reactor core, pressurizer, and pumps are installed in the pressure
vessel. This arrangement increases the height difference between
reactor core and steam generator. And the primary coolant flow
resistance can be reduced by eliminate primary pipes. All the
improvements will enhance the natural circulation capacity of pri-
mary coolant and the safety of the IPWR is improved greatly. Many
countries put forward to the design of integrated reactors, such as
IRIS (Carelli et al., 2004), SMART (Bae et al., 2001), CAREM (Fukami
and Santecchia, 2000), IMR (Hibi et al., 2004). Because the IPWRs
cancel the primary pipes, the design of PRHRS generally uses the
passive safety system connect to the steam generator secondary
side (Chung et al., 2004; Park et al., 2008). IPWR usually be
equipped with once through steam generator (OTSG) to reduce
the volume of reactor vessel. Meanwhile the OTSG has better load
response characteristics, but the water volume of OTSG secondary
side is very small, which is not good for the operation of PRHRS.
The purpose of this paper is to design a heat removal system for
the IPWR and study the natural convection behavior of the PRHRS.
The superheated steam generated by once through steam genera-
tor is condensing to achieve the export of reactor power from pri-
mary loop. After the steam condensation, water will accumulate in
heat transfer tube, resulting in the water level rises higher than the
water level of once-through steam generator. And then condensate
water flows back into steam generator by gravity, two-phase nat-
ural circulation in PRHRS will be established. The model of IPWR
primary loop and PRHRS is developed by RELAP5 code. Then natu-
ral circulation transient characteristics of primary loop and PRHRS
loop are studied to investigate the residual heat removal capability
of the PRHRS.
2. Simulation model of the PRHRS
2.1. Brief introduction of IPWR200
IPWR200 is an integral-type pressurized water reactor with
220 MW of thermal output in normal operation condition (Salah
et al., 2013). The typical feature of IPWR200 is the utilization of
plate type fuel element and once-through steam generator. Twelve
steam generators are arranged around the core, and three steam
generators are equipped with one main coolant pump. The major
design parameters of IPWR200 are shown in Table 1.
2.2. Description for the PRHRS
The schematic diagram of PRHRS is shown in Fig. 1. This design
of PRHRS adopts a water tank as the finally heat sink. The position
of water tank is higher than the steam generator and a heat
exchanger is submerged in it. The inlet pipe of heat exchanger is
connected to main steam pipe and outlet pipe of heat exchanger
is connected to OTSG feedwater pipes. Isolation valves are located
at the inlet and outlet pipes of the PRHRS loop. A check valve is
Table 1
Design parameters of IPWR200.
Parameter Value
Initial core power (100%) 220.0 MW
Reactor core inlet temperature 562.15 K
Reactor core outlet temperature 594.15 K
Pressurizer pressure 15.5 MPa
Primary coolant flow rates 1200.0 kg/s
Initial feedwater flow rate 81.6 kg/s
Main feedwater temperature 373.15 K
Main steam pressure 3.0 MPa
Superheat of steam 40.0 K
installed on the water pipelines between OTSG and heat exchanger
to avoid the water reverse to PRHRS from OTSG. The OTSG second-
ary side, heat exchanger, pipes, and valves compose the PRHRS
loop (Fig. 1).
During normal operating conditions, the pipes of PRHRS are
filled with water and the isolation valves in PRHRS loop are closed.
The main feedwater isolation valve (MFIV) and the main steam iso-
lation valve (MSIV) are open, sub-cooled water forced circulation
flows into the steam generator and super heated steam flows
out. When the station blackout accident occurs, the feedwater sup-
ply disruption, then the reactor trip protection system shuts down
the reactor. At the same time, the MFIV and MSIV are closed, and
the isolation valves in PRHRS loop are open automatically. Cold
water stored in the PRHRS system flows into the OTSG secondary
side, and the superheated steam enters the heat exchanger in
which the steam is cooled and condensed to water. After the steam
condensation, water will accumulate in the heat transfer tube,
resulting in the water level rises higher than the water level of
OTSG. The sub-cooled water returns to steam generator by gravity
and generate superheat steam at the low decay heat consistently.
In primary loop, after the stalling of main pump, primary coolant
running state change from forced circulation to natural circulation.
During the PRHRS operation, the residual heat is removed from pri-
mary loop to cooling water tank by single phase (primary loop) and
two phase (PRHRS loop) natural circulation. With the continue
accumulation of heat, the water temperature in water tank
increases and the water evaporates into the atmosphere
eventually.
2.3. RELAP5 model of PRHRS
In order to study the natural circulation characteristics of
PRHRS, RELAP5 code is used to establish the model of reactor sys-
tem. RELAP5/MOD3.4 code is a best-estimate system analysis code
based on a two-fluid model for two-phase flows (INEL, 1998). The
nodalization of PRHRS is shown in Fig. 2. Reactor core is divided
into three channels, and the point reactor kinetics equation model
is provided to simulate the reactor power. Under the accident con-
ditions, the reactor can be shutdown rapidly by introducing a neg-
ative reactivity. For simplicity, the secondary loop system is not
simulated in current model. The feed-water flow, steam flow and
pressure of turbine system could be easily displaced by time
depend boundary in RELAP5 code.
Water tank is divided into two parts, 320P and 322P. The pipes
have the same number of nodes, and the corresponding nodes are
connected using single junctions to simulate the lateral flow of
water. Therefore, when the water at the bottom of the cooling
water tank is heated, natural circulation is formed inside the cool-
ing water tank to ensure the nodes have the same temperature.
There is gas space at the top of CWT, the non-condensable gas frac-
tion at the top node of 320P and 322P is set to 1.0 to simulate the
gas space at the top of cooling water tank. The left boundary of
heat structure is connected to the nodes of 310P, and the right
boundary is connected to the nodes of 320P. Time dependent vol-
ume 324TDV is adopted to simulate the atmospheric environment,
when the water is boiling and the steam discharges into the atmo-
sphere by single junction 323 J. Motor valve is applied to simulate
the isolation valve 301 V and 315 V, and it can be opened in 10 s
fully if the open trip is true.
3. Calculation results and discussion
At 100% full power (FP) conditions, the system operates stably
in 500.0 s. Then introduce the station blackout accident, primary
coolant pumps and main feedwater pumps lose power. The pri-
 G. Xia et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 72 (2014) 189–197 191

Pressurizer
Heat
exchanger
Isolation
Coolant
valve
pump
Water tank

OTSG

Reactor
core Check Isolation Compensating
valve valve tank

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the PRHRS.

mary coolant flow condition changes from forced circulation to
natural circulation. And the feedwater flow decreases rapidly.
When the feedwater flow is less than 10%, the reactor trip protec-
tion system will be triggered by a low–low OTSG feedwater flow
signal. At the same time, the closing trip of MFIV and MSIV is trig-
gered and the PRHRS isolation valves are open simultaneously.
3.1. Single-phase natural circulations in primary loop
When the reactor trip protection system is triggered, control
rods insert into reactor core fast by gravity. Hence the fission
power decreases rapidly, and the fission product decay heat
becomes the main part of reactor power. Fig. 3 shows the variation

034TMD 036TMD

035 037
030TMD 01 02
032P 033
026P5 304B
306P 307J 324TMD
026P4
323J
026P3
026P2 302P 308P
026P1 1026H

111 024 121 301 309J

260TMD 250P 218B 112B 122B 228B 250P 320P 322P
022P8 325J
255 6
216B 114B 022P7 124B 226B
5
022P6
4
310P
1 2 1 022P5 1 2 1
1 1 1 2 2 2 3 336P
022P4
6 4 5 5 4 6
022P3 2
A A P P A A
022P2 1
311J
335J
213B 117B 022P1 127B 223B
332P
212B 118B 128B 222B 312P
020B
200TMD 202P 202P
201 331V
010A1 010A1

010A2 010A2 315V 313J

314P
010A3 014P 016P 018P 010A3

010A4 010A4

010A5 010A5

012B

Fig. 2. The RELAP5 nodalization of PRHRS.

192 G. Xia et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 72 (2014) 189–197

of reactor power with time, the reactor power reduces to less than 20
3% FP rapidly after the reactor shutdown. Pressurizer
18
After primary pumps lose electrical power, the primary mass OTSG
flow rate decreases obviously. The change of mass flow rate with 16
time is presented in Fig. 4 which illustrates that the primary mass

Pressure [MPa]
14
flow rate is influenced by the stopping behavior of primary pump.
After about 100 s a stable natural circulation is formed, the operat- 12
ing conditions of primary coolant vary from forced circulation to
natural circulation. Then the circulating mass flow rate of single 6

2
120
0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
100
Time [s]
Reactor power [%]

80 Fig. 6. Steam pressure in OTSG and prissurizer change with time.

60

12
40
Steam flow
10
20 Condensate water flow

Mass flow rate [kg/s]

8
0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 6
Time [s]
4
Fig. 3. Variation of reactor power.

120 0

100 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000

Time [s]
Mass flow rate [%]

80
Fig. 7. Variation of steam flow and condensate water flow.

60
phase natural circulation decreases slowly with the reducing of
40 reactor power.
In the process of establishing stable natural circulation, the
20 change of primary coolant temperature is displayed in Fig. 5. At
the beginning, the primary coolant temperature increases with
0 the decreasing of primary coolant mass flow rate. The outlet tem-
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 perature of reactor core reaches to 605 K (point a). When the reac-
Time [s] tor core shutdown is triggered by a low–low feedwater flow, the
reactor core inlet temperature decreases to 562 K quickly (point
Fig. 4. Primary mass flow rate change with time.

640 5.0
Reactor core inlet
630 Reactor core outlet 600 4.5 Steam generator water level
Heat exchanger water level
Temperature /K

620 4.0
580
610 3.5
Temperature [K]

Water level [m]

600 560
3.0
590 2.5
500 550 600 650 700
580 Time [s] 2.0
570 1.5
560 1.0
550 0.5
540 0.0
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Time [s] Time [s]

Fig. 5. Primary coolant temperature change with time. Fig. 8. Variation of water level in OTSG and heat exchanger.
 G. Xia et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 72 (2014) 189–197 193

600 steam flow. The variation of steam pressure with time is shown
in Fig. 6, the pressure decrease slowly as the reactor power is
590
reducing.
580 During normal operation the OTSG generates superheated
Temperature [K]

steam, and the same mass flow rate feedwater as steam flows into
570
the steam generator. In accident the water supply is disruption,
560 and the MSIV is closed under low feedwater flow signals. In this
MSIV actuation time, the OTSG water level decreases as a lot of
550
steam flows out of the steam generator. With the open of conden-
540 sate isolation valve, the water level increases as a large number of
Primary coolant temperature
water enters the steam generator, as shown in Fig. 8. When the
530 OTSG secondary side temperature
Condensate water temperature
520
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 9
Normalized length t = 10s
8 t = 20s
Fig. 9. Temperature change in PRHRS loop (T = 1000.0 s). t = 30s
7 t = 40s

Pressure [MPa]
t = 50s

10 6

Heat absorbed by water tank 5

8
Reactor power
4
6
Power [MW]

3
4
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
2 Time [s]

0
(a) Steam pressure
590
-2 t = 10s
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 t = 20s
Time [s] 580
t = 30s
t = 40s
Temperature [K]

Fig. 10. Comparison of power absorbed by cooling water tank and reactor power. t = 50s

570
b). As the stopping behavior of the primary coolant pumps is acted,
when the reactor power reduces to a nearly constant value, the pri-
mary coolant mass flow rate continues to decline (Fig. 4). The dif- 560
ferent change rate in reactor power and primary flow cause the
reactor core outlet temperature to reach to 591 K (point c). When
stable two phase natural circulation is established in PRHRS loop, 550
cold water enters the steam generator, and superheated steam 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
condenses in heat exchanger. The average primary coolant temper- Time [s]
ature is decreasing with the reactor power decreases.
(b) Primary coolant average temperature
The primary coolant pressure change is shown in Fig. 6. There is
a small increase in pressure at the beginning, and then the pressure 10
continues to decrease. The variation tendency of the pressurizer Actuation time 10s
water level is similar to the primary pressure. With the primary Actuation time 20s
coolant temperature decreases, the volume of water contracts 8 Actuation time 30s
which lead to the water level reduces. Actuation time 40s
Mass flow rate [kg/s]

Actuation time 50s

6

3.2. Two-phase natural circulations in PRHRS loop

4
Fig. 7 shows the change of steam flow and condensate water
flow. As the PRHRS loop is filled with water, there will be lots of
2
water flowing into steam generator when the isolation valves are
opening. Consequently the condensate water flow is high relatively
at the beginning. For the reason that the steam pressure (or satu- 0
ration temperature) of OTSG secondary side increases rapidly 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
when the MSIV is closed, the steam flow is lower than the water Time [s]
flow. After the establishment of a stable natural circulation, water (c) Mass flow rate of natural circulation flow
is evaporated in the steam generator, and steam is condensed in
the heat exchanger, the condensate water flow is the same as Fig. 11. Effect of the MSIV actuation time.
194 G. Xia et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 72 (2014) 189–197

9
540
8 510

7 480
Pressure [MPa]

Temperature [K]
450
6
420
5
390
4
360
3 330

2 300
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Time [s] Time [s]
(a) Steam pressure (c) Condensate water temperature
600 12
590
10
580

Mass flow rate [kg/s]

570
Temperature [K]

8
560
550 6
540
4
530
520
2
510
500 0
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Time [s] Time [s]
(b) Primary coolant average temperature (d) Mass flow rate of natural circulation flow
Fig. 12. Calculation results for different heat exchanger areas.

heat balance between steam generator and heat exchanger is
established, there is 1.5 m length height difference which produces
enough driving forces for two phase natural circulation.
When the PRHRS is running, the superheated steam flows into
heat exchanger in which the steam is condensed to water, then
the condensate water flows into the steam generator by gravity.
Thus a two phase natural circulation is formed. Fig. 9 displays the
temperature change in steam generator and heat exchanger at
1000.0 s. We can see from the figure, subcooled water is heated
to superheated steam in steam generator secondary side, super-
heated steam is condensed to subcooled water in the heat
exchanger, and the primary coolant temperature decreases
clearly.
Fig. 10 shows the comparison of power absorbed by CWT and
the reactor power. From the figure, it is illustrated that the heat
absorbed by CWT is lower than reactor power at the beginning,
thus the primary coolant temperature increases (Fig. 5). And then
with the reducing of reactor power, the heat absorbed by cooling
water tank is higher than the reactor decay power, which causes
the continuous decrease of primary coolant temperature (Fig. 5).
4. PRHRS parameter study under natural convection condition
The natural circulation mass flow rate could be affected by
many factors, such as the height difference, the density difference,
and the flow resistance. Any change in these parameters influence
the operating state of passive systems. In this part, parameters are
investigated to research the effect on the PRHRS under natural con-
vection conditions.
4.1. Effect of the MSIV actuation time
After the accident, the steam and condensate water isolation
valves in PRHRS loop open rapidly according to the low water flow
signals, but the MSIV cannot be shut down immediately. There is
10 s actuation time for the valve to close after the close signal trips.
During this delay time, a lot of steam will be lost through the main
steam pipe. In this study, actuation times are changed to 20 s, 30 s,
40 s, and 50 s, and then observe the effect of actuation time to the
operation characteristic of passive residual heat removal system. In
this process, other parameters such as the height difference and
the heat exchanger area are kept constant.
When the isolation valves are open, there will be a lot of cold
water flows into steam generator. Due to water evaporates in the
OTSG, the steam pressure increases quickly at the beginning, and
then the steam pressure begins to decrease with the PRHRS oper-
ation. As shown in Fig. 11a, the curves indicate that the valve actu-
ation time will affect the pressure of the superheated steam. If the
MSIV closing time is extended, there will be more steam flows into
secondary loop and the steam pressure will be reduced. However,
the saturation temperature decreases with the reducing of steam
pressure. And the further decreasing in temperature difference
between PRHRS heat exchanger reduces the efficiency of the steam
condensation eventually. As presented in Fig. 11b, the heat
 G. Xia et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 72 (2014) 189–197 195

8 12

Power absorbed by water tank [MW]

7
10
6
Pressure [MPa]

5
8

3 6

2
4
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Time [s] Time [s]
(a) Steam pressure Fig. 15. Comparison of heat transfer quantity at different height difference.

600 Fig. 12 shows the calculation results for five kinds of heat
exchanger area, and other parameters remain constant. The figures
580
point out that, the primary coolant temperature decreased faster
Temperature [K]

with the increase of heat exchanger area (Fig. 12b). The steam flow
560
is mainly affected by the temperature of primary coolant, when the
steam heat transfer area of HX is sufficient. Increasing the heat
540
exchanger area has a little effect on the natural circulation mass
520
flow rate, but the lower condensate water temperature can
increase the heat removal capability of the PRHRS (Fig. 12c). And
500

480
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 600
Time [s] 590 V=0.0
(b) Primary coolant temperature 580
V=0.2
V=0.4
Temperature [K]

Fig. 13. Effect of the height difference. 570 V=0.6

V=0.8
560
removal capability of the PRHRS is decreased with longer MSIV 550
action time.
540

530

4.2. Effect of the heat exchanger areas 520

510
The heat transfer area is one of the most significant parameter 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
in the design of passive residual heat removal system. In this study, Time [s]
only the heat exchanger area is changed to find the effect of the
(a) Primary coolant temperature
heat exchanger area on the heat removal capability of the PRHRS.
8
V=0.0
20
V=0.2
20 7
18 V=0.4
Mass flow rate [kg/s]

16
14
V=0.6
Pressure [MPa]

15 12 V=0.8
Mass flow rate [kg/s]

10
6
8
6
4
2 5
10 0
-2
500 510 520 530 540 550
Time [s] 4

5
3

500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500
0
500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 Time [s]
Time [s] (b) Steam pressure
Fig. 14. Comparison of mass flow rate at different height difference. Fig. 16. Effect of the compensating tank volume.
196 G. Xia et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 72 (2014) 189–197

15 15
Steam flow No chack valve
Condensate water flow Have a chack valve
10 10
Mass flow rate [kg/s]

Mass flow rate [kg/s]

5 5

0 0

-5 -5

-10 -10
700 720 740 760 780 800 500 550 600 650 700 750 800
Time [s] Time /s
(a) V=0.8 Fig. 19. Comparison of mass flow rate.

4.5
Steam flow than the density of steam, the two-phase natural circulation flow is
Condensate water flow
4.0 mainly due to the driving force of water level difference between
steam generator and heat exchanger. The heat removal system
Mass flow rate [kg/s]

can establish a stable natural circulation without large height dif-

3.5 ference. Even though the altitude of OTSG and HX is the same
(H = 0.0), the internal water level is different.
3.0 On the large height difference conditions, the PRHRS has big
natural circulation mass flow rate, as shown in Fig. 14. The cold
water flows into steam generator be heated and evaporated rap-
2.5 idly, and the steam volume expansion leads to the increase of
steam pressure (Fig. 13a). On the other hand, heat transfer effi-
2.0 ciency can be enhanced by increasing the mass flow rate. There-
700 702 704 706 708 710 712 714 716 718 720 fore, on the larger height difference conditions, the steam
Time [s] pressure decreases faster, so does the primary coolant temperature
(Fig. 13b). However, the two-phase natural circulation flow is
(b) V=0.4
mainly due to the driving force of water level difference between
Fig. 17. Flow fluctuations of steam and condensate water. steam generator and heat exchanger. When the height difference
is large enough, the increase of height difference is useless for
enhancing the heat removal capability of PRHRS. Fig. 15 shows
the steam pressure decrease with the increase of heat exchanger the comparison of the heat transfer quantity at different height dif-
area, as shown in Fig. 12a. ference conditions. The figure displays that when the height differ-
ence is greater than 4.0 m, the heat transfer quantity variation is
4.3. Effect of the height difference very small with the increase of height difference.

Passive residual heat removal system takes the heat away from
4.4. Effect of the compensating tank volume
primary coolant system by two-phase natural circulations in
PRHRS loop. Fig. 13 shows the calculation results of steam pressure
In the design of PRHRS, the compensating tank is used to hold
and primary coolant average temperature under different height
the water inventory of PRHRS. During the heat remove transient,
difference conditions. Because the density of water is much larger
compensating tank which connects to the condensate water pipe
can guarantee the water level of steam generator. Fig. 16 illustrates
15 the effect of compensating tank. The volume of compensating tank
V=0.2 has no significant effect to the heat remove capacity (Fig. 16a). But
V=0.4
10 the steam pressure decreases with the increase of the initial nitro-
V=0.8
gen volume. However, when the nitrogen volume reaches a certain
Mass flow rate [kg/s]

5 level, the system pressure becomes unstable (Fig. 16b).

Fig. 17 presents the mass flow rate of steam and condensate
0 water at different nitrogen volumes. As the figures show, the
two-phase natural circulation mass flow rates are unstable with
-5
the increase of nitrogen volume. The amplitude of condensate
water flow is significantly greater than the amplitude of steam
flow. And the amplitude increases with the nitrogen volume. It is
-10
because the nitrogen volume in compensating tank has the func-
tion of stabilizing the pressure of PRHRS. Steam also has strong
-15
700 705 710 715 720 725 730 compressibility. The interaction between steam and nitrogen
causes the system flow unstable. Fig. 18 shows the detailed mass
Time [s]
flow rate at the compensating tank inlet pipe. When the nitrogen
Fig. 18. Detailed mass flow rate at the compensating tank inlet. volume is 0.4 m3, there is small instability at the inlet of compen-
 G. Xia et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 72 (2014) 189–197
sating tank, but the flow amplitude becomes large as nitrogen vol-
ume increases to 0.8 m3. When the nitrogen volume reaches a cer-
tain level, the system pressure becomes unstable. But from Fig. 19,
we can see that the flow oscillation will be reduced if the check
valve is installed at the pipe between compensating tank and
PRHRS pipe.
5. Conclusions
This paper presents a passive residual heat removal system for
an IPWR. The transient characteristics of system have been inves-
tigated using RELAP5/MOD3.4 code. According to the analysis
results, the major findings are summarized as follows:
(1) Through the single-phase natural circulation in primary loop
and the two-phase natural circulation in PRHRS loop, PRHRS
is sufficient enough to remove heat from primary coolant
system. The MSIV actuation time, heat transfer area and
the effective height between OTSG and HX are the most
important parameters to increase the heat removal capabil-
ity of PRHRS.
(2) When the passive residual heat removal system is running,
the driving force of two-phase natural circulation is the
water level difference between steam generator and passive
residual heat removal heat exchanger. The density of water
is much greater than steam, so smaller water level difference
can produce a strong driving force. So it is possible to estab-
lish a stable two phase natural circulation at low height dif-
ference conditions. And when the height difference is large
enough, the increase of height difference is useless for
enhancing the heat removal capability of PRHRS.
(3) The volume of compensating tank has a little impact on the
heat remove capacity of PRHRS. But the steam pressure
decreases with the increase of the initial nitrogen volume.
However, when the nitrogen volume reaches a certain level,
197
the system pressure becomes unstable. The flow oscillation
will be reduced if the check valve is installed at the pipe
between compensating tank and PRHRS pipe.
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