Effect of spray on performance of the hydrogen mitigation system during LB-LOCA for CPR1000 NPP

During the course of the hypothetical large break loss-of-coolant accident (LB-LOCA) in a nuclear power plant (NPP), hydrogen is generated by a reaction between steam and the fuel-cladding inside the reactor pressure vessel (RPV). It is then ejected from the break into the containment along with a large amount of steam. Management of hydrogen safety and prevention of over-pressurization could be implemented through a hydrogen mitigation system (HMS) and spray system in CPR1000 NPP. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code GASFLOW is utilized in this study to analyze the spray effect on the performance of HMS during LB-LOCA. Results show that as a kind of HMS, deliberate igniter system (DIS) could initiate hydrogen combustion immediately after the flammability limit of the gas mixture has been reached. However, it will increase the temperature and pressure drastically. Operating the DIS under spray condition could result in hydrogen combustion being suppressed by suspended droplets inside the containment. Furthermore, the droplets could also mitigate local the temperature rise. Operation of a PAR system, another kind of HMS, consumes hydrogen steadily with a lower recombination rate which is not affected noticeably by the spray system. Numerical results indicate that the dual concept, namely the integrated application of DIS and PAR systems, is a constructive improvement for hydrogen safety under spray condition during LB-LOCA. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.