Design Study of Small Modular Reactor Class Super Fast Reactor Core for In-Vessel Retention

Abstract

The small modular reactor (SMR) class core design concept of once-through supercritical light water-cooled reactor (SCWR) with fast neutron spectrum (super fast reactor (FR)) is being developed at Waseda University. For the 300 MWel class design, complete core meltdown may need to be considered in case of a severe accident. This study proposes the new in-vessel retention (IVR) concept of the SMR class super FR (super FR-IVR), which can avoid recriticality even if the whole core relocates to the lower plenum of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV). The core characteristics with a given set of design specifications and criteria are evaluated based on fully coupled neutronics and thermal-hydraulics core burnup calculations. The debris criticality is evaluated based on Monte Carlo based method to consider the RPV lower plenum and debris configurations. The relationships between the 300 MWel class core design with the inner vessel diameter of 2.32 m and the IVR design are revealed. By reducing the operation cycle length from 720 days to 360 days and increasing the core inlet temperature from 280 °C to 370 °C, the required IVR submergence level could be reduced from 2.18 m to 1.38 m, assuming that the debris bed (melt pool) is homogeneous. However, when fully stratified debris configurations are assumed, the required disperser height and the corresponding IVR submergence level may increase to about 2.70 m.