Design and verification test of the small absorber ball system of the HTR-10

A small absorber ball system is the second shutdown system of the 10 MW High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor-Test Module. When the control rod system is out of operation, the small absorber ball system is required to emergently shut down the reactor by means of boron carbide balls totally dropping into channels in the side reflector by gravity. Before the reactor re-operates, these small absorber balls must be conveyed from channels in the side reflector back to the ball storage vessels below the head of reactor pressure vessel by a pneumatic conveying process. Detailed design of the small absorber ball system was carried out, and all the components were manufactured. In order to check the performances of the small absorber ball system, a pneumatic conveying experiment and a hot test were carried out in the laboratory, and also a pre-operation of the small absorber ball system was verified on the reactor site at room temperature. Test data of the small absorber ball system show that all the parameters, including time of ball dropping, time of ball conveying back, indication of ball level in the ball storage vessel, gas flowrate, and valve operation states, are acceptable and reasonable. The small absorber ball system has been shown to be capable of performing satisfactorily at operating temperatures of the reactor. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.