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Advanced Vessel Cooling System Concept for High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors

Akio Saikusa, Kazuhiko Kunitomi, Shusaku Shiozawa

Nuclear Technology / Volume 118 / Number 2 / May 1997 / Pages 89-96

Technical Paper / Fission Reactor / dx.doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35370

The high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) program will be attractive to a broad range of owner / operators and meet public acceptance if the future HTGRs would be completely free from accidents, which cause a significant release of radioactivity into the environment. An advanced vessel cooling system concept, in which there is no heat loss in normal operation and the decay heat is removed by the natural circulation of air in an accident, is proposed for the High-Temperature Engineering Test Reactor to meet this requirement. The depressurization accident, one of the severest accidents of the HTGR, is selected and the analysis shows no significant core heatup. Applicability to the future HTGR is also investigated.