Steady-State Natural Circulation Performance of the Experimental Breeder Reactor II Primary Heat Transport Circuit

The Experimental Breeder Reactor II is a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor and is designed to operate at a thermal power of 62.5 MW and an electrical generation rate of 20 MW. In a continuing program devoted to the understanding of the thermal, hydraulic, and neutronic behavior of this reactor under both normal and off-normal operating conditions, a series of steady-state natural convection tests have been conducted. Instrumentation utilized for the control and observation of the reactor behavior during these experiments included both the normal plant sensors as well as those located in-core within a special fueled subassembly. The results of these measurements have been compared to the predictions of an analytical model of the entire primary heat transport circuit and satisfactory agreement was obtained.