DESIGN AND INVESTIGATION OF WEIGHT BUNDLE SIMULATOR FOR INDIAN PHWR USING APDL - A THERMAL ASPECT

Under a postulated scenario of Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) with un-availability of emergency core cooling system (ECCS) for Indian Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (IPHWR), the channel integrity needs to be assured. An experimental facility is presently being developed at Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT R) India to study such a severe event. In this study a CFD simulation of fuel bundle weight simulator is being carried out using ANSYS 19.0 in transient thermal analysis using ANSYS Parametric Design Language (APDL) solver. The test facility aims to estimate the thermal aspect of weight bundle simulator which is the source of heat generation for pressure tube. Thermo-mechanical deformation of pressure tube will depend on the heat source, therefore it is of great importance to check the thermal integrity of weight bundle fuel simulator. Power requirement, weight, and dimensions of weight bundle fuel simulator is similar to the actual fuel bundle used in 700 MWe IPHWR. Simulation was done for 3 % and 2% decay heat. From analysis it was found that the rate of temperature rise in pressure tube with 3 % decay heat reached a maximum of 2 0C/sec and average rate of temperature rise was around 1 0C/sec whereas with 2% decay heat, pressure tube maximum temperature rise was 1.5 0C/sec and average rate 0.8 0C/sec. Results obtained will be further used for designing of 700 MWe full length channel set-up