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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Energy Res.
Sec. Nuclear Energy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2025.1566271
This article is part of the Research TopicNumerical and Experimental Studies on Small/Micro Nuclear Reactors, Volume IIView all 4 articles
Thermal Hydraulic Safety Characteristics Analysis for The Natural Circulation Primary Loop under Inclined Condition on LFR
Provisionally accepted- 1University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui Province, China
- 2International Academy of Neutron Science (IANS), Qingdao, China
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Abstract：Lead-cooled fast reactor (LFR) has been an important option for floating nuclear power plant. The design of 50 MW natural circulation LFR had been proposed by Lanzhou University for floating nuclear power plant. However, floating nuclear power plant was affected by the marine environment, which led to safety problems in reactor under inclined condition. To analyze the impact of different heat exchangers configuration and inclination angle on the thermal-hydraulic safety performance of the reactor, this study utilized RELAP5 software and established a thermal-hydraulic model of the 50MW natural circulation LFR. The results indicated that the core flow rate reduced to 95.12% of the flow rate at 100%FP power, when the inclination angle was 30°.When the angle between the heat exchanger and the central axis of floating nuclear power plant is 45°, the maximum outlet temperature difference in the heat exchanger is 1.86K. During the process of power increasing and decreasing, the reactor power was increased with rates of 0.5% FP/min, and the core cladding temperature was increased to the maximum 938.42K. This study provided technical reference for the design of natural circulation lead-cooled fast reactors in floating nuclear power plant.
Keywords: Lead-cooled fast reactor, natural circulation, Inclined condition, RELAP5, thermal-hydraulic safety characteristics
Received: 24 Jan 2025; Accepted: 11 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Li, Li, Zhou and Yu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Tingyu Li, International Academy of Neutron Science (IANS), Qingdao, China
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