Title: Optimisation of thermal baffle for liquid metal injection nozzle

Authors: V. Vinod; B.K. Sreedhar; G. Padmakumar; K.K. Rajan

Addresses: Fast Reactor Technology Group, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam 03102, India ' Fast Reactor Technology Group, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam 03102, India ' Fast Reactor Technology Group, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam 03102, India ' Fast Reactor Technology Group, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam 03102, India

Abstract: SADHANA is a test facility dedicated for the experimental demonstration of passive safety grade decay heat removal in the prototype fast breeder reactor. Experiments are planned in SADHANA to characterise the behaviour of this system followed by various reactor transients. For simulating the reactor transients of hot pool, cold sodium at 310°C has to be injected to the test vessel of SADHANA at 550°C temperature. Thermal baffle provided in the nozzle of test vessel was optimised to limit the peak local stress. This paper gives the thermo-mechanical studies conducted to optimise the nozzle geometry with thermal baffles.

Keywords: thermal stress; thermal baffles; creep fatigue interaction; nozzle joints; vessel to nozzle junction; sodium heat transfer; nozzle geometry optimisation; liquid metal injection nozzles; passive safety grade decay heat removal; fast breeder reactors; FBRs; nuclear energy; nuclear power; simulation; peak local stress.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNEST.2016.081990

International Journal of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology, 2016 Vol.10 No.4, pp.287 - 301

Received: 20 Feb 2016
Accepted: 12 Sep 2016
Published online: 31 Jan 2017 *

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