Study on Hydrogen Risk Venting Mitigation Measure of Small Steel Containment During Severe Accident

Abstract

The hydrogen risk in small steel containment is one of the most important safety problems of small modular reactor (SMR), effective measures need to be taken to mitigate the risk of high concentration hydrogen in a small free volume during severe accidents. In the early stage of a severe accident caused by a loss of coolant accident, the pressure in the containment may rise rapidly, probably triggering the immediate venting of the containment, which can protect the integrity of the containment in the stage of pressure rise in the short term. In the later stage of a severe accident, the generation of hydrogen from reactor core may cause hydrogen combustion or even explosion, which may cause the possibility of overpressure in the containment. In this paper, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) GASFLOW-MPI code is used to analyze the effect of containment venting measures on hydrogen risk in small steel containment of SMR during severe accident initiated by direct vessel injection line break loss-of-coolant. The analysis results show that the venting action can effectively depressurize the containment, the larger the area of the venting pipe is, the more obvious the depressurization effect is. However, hydrogen cannot be effectively discharged in the middle and later stage of the accident, so the risk of hydrogen cannot be completely eliminated, and the possibility of flame acceleration in containment cannot be ruled out for the reason that the negative pressure generated by water vapor condensation will suck in the air outside the containment and form a combustible gas cloud again.