Study on the performance of an open-loop passive containment cooling system

The containment is an ultimate and important barrier to keep the radioactivity from release. The integrity of the containment is crucial to control the consequences of either loss of coolant accident or main steam line break accident. A passive containment cooling system concept designed to remove the heat by natural circulation means is proposed, which is composed of a series of heat exchangers, long connecting pipes with relative large diameter, valves, and a water tank. The performance of the system is numerically simulated and the self-developed codes are validated by the experimental data. The influences of several key parameters are investigated on the performance of the system from different aspects. The results confirm that four distinct operating stages could be experienced as follows: startup stage, single-phase quasi-steady stage, flashing speed up transient stage, and flashing dominated quasi-steady operating stage. Furthermore, the mechanisms of the ways through which the parameters influence the behaviors of the proposed system are thus analyzed. Moreover, the feasibility of the system is also commented on the basis of the numerical results.