Theoritical approach of pneumatic transportation for fuel pebbles in experimental power reactor development

Abstract

High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors (HTGR) have many advantages such as inherent safety feature and high efficiency. National Nuclear Agency of Indonesia (BATAN) is developing a small size HTGR which called Experimental Power Reactor (RDE) to generate 10 MW thermal power. On the RDE design development, it is expected that a number of fuel elements are circulated pneumatically in to the reactor core by the fuel handling system every day. The fuel elements are transported vertically in a pneumatic pipe, with length 23 meters. Stability and reliability of the pneumatic transportation play important key factors in the fuel element transportation. In this paper, a theoretical approach to determine the operating pressure and velocity related to the compressed gas carrier in the pneumatic transportation is proposed. The analysis is made by considering several forces acting on the fuel element., such as drag force and force due to fuel mass. Analysis of carrier gas velocity and pressure is made under several stages: during the equilibrium stage and during the lifting stage. This research may provide an important basis in providing the operating parameters in the development of RDE. The principle of drag force and Bernoulli equation were used to determine the operating pressure and velocity to be applied in the development of experimental power reactor. From the calculation, it was obtained that in order to transport a fuel pebbel from the starting pneumatic system, which located in the lower part of pneumatic system, to the outlet pipe of pneumatic system facing the reactor, which located 23 meters above the former location, the velocity required was 1,063.95 m/s. The required pressure to produce such velocity was 39.25 Bar. Since the Fuel Handling System (FHS) equipments were operating at 30 Bar, then the penumatic system would be operating at 9.25 Bar.High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors (HTGR) have many advantages such as inherent safety feature and high efficiency. National Nuclear Agency of Indonesia (BATAN) is developing a small size HTGR which called Experimental Power Reactor (RDE) to generate 10 MW thermal power. On the RDE design development, it is expected that a number of fuel elements are circulated pneumatically in to the reactor core by the fuel handling system every day. The fuel elements are transported vertically in a pneumatic pipe, with length 23 meters. Stability and reliability of the pneumatic transportation play important key factors in the fuel element transportation. In this paper, a theoretical approach to determine the operating pressure and velocity related to the compressed gas carrier in the pneumatic transportation is proposed. The analysis is made by considering several forces acting on the fuel element., such as drag force and force due to fuel mass. Analysis of carrier gas velocity and pressure is made under several sta...