Performance of a Spray Pond for Nuclear Power Plant Ultimate Heat Sink

Abstract

Spray ponds have become an attractive method of providing the “ultimate heat sink”, i.e., the assured means of dissipating heat from a nuclear power plant. Two redundant spray ponds were the choice for this service in the Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station owned by Sacramento Municipal Utility District. This paper describes the results of full scale field tests of the Rancho Seco ponds which were conducted to verify the thermal performance, drift loss characteristics, and the capability to sustain the cooling requirements for a period of 30 days following a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). Correlations of local and average nozzle efficiency and of the drift loss are presented. A computer code was developed for the transient thermal performance of the pond. After verification the code was used to predict performance following LOCA under adverse meteorological conditions based on weather records.