Numerical Investigation of Aircraft Impacting Nuclear Power Plant with Different Fuel Loading

Abstract

The impact of a large commercial aircraft on the nuclear power plant is required in the hazards analysis for nuclear safety since 9/11 events. Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) was used to simulate the fireball caused by the impact of a large commercial aircraft on nuclear power plant (NPP). The effect of loading fuel on the fireball behavior was investigated after aircraft crash. Simulated results show as the fuel loading mass increases from 10 tons to 75 tons, the maximum heat release rate (HRR) of fireball increases from 6.46×107 kw to 1.84×108 kw; residual fuel increased from 18% to 43.3% of the total fuel load; lifetime of fireball increases from 13.29 s to 19.66 s; maximum diameters of the fireball increases from 103.54 m to 209.9 m. In order to investigate the reliability of numerical simulations, predicted lifetime and maximum diameter of fireball were compared with the values that calculated by semi-empirical models. Relative errors of the prediction for lifetime and maximum diameter of fireball are approximately 13.1%~26.5% and 12.9%~15.2%, respectively. Evidently, the numerical simulation results have good reliability.