Fast Reactors and Accelerator Driven Systems Knowledge Base

The primary coolant pipes are made of ductile austenitic stainless steel material and operate at temperatures of the cold pool and at comparatively low pressures. For such low stressed piping with negligible creep and embrittlement effects, it is of interest to discuss under what design provisions, for pool type reactors, the guillotine rupture of PCP could be placed in the BDBE category.

The topical Technical Meeting (TM) on “Primary Coolant Pipe Rupture Event in Liquid Metal Cooled Reactors” was called to enable the specialists to present the philosophy and analyses applied on this topic in the various Member States for different LMFRs.

The scope of the Technical Meeting was to provide a global forum for information exchange on the philosophy applied in the various participating Member States and the analyses performed for different LMFRs with regard to the primary coolant pipe rupture event.

More specifically, the objectives of the Technical Meeting were to review the safety philosophy for the PCP rupture event in pool type LMFR, to assess the structural reliability of the PCP and the probability of rupture under different conditions (with/without in-service inspection), to review the classification of the PCP rupture event in DBE/BDBE categories and discuss the applicable design safety limits, to assess the need for consequential analysis like pipe whip effects, primary pump seizure and multiple pipe rupture, and, last but not least, to present the results of analyses of the event per se for flows and/or temperatures and improved design concepts for minimizing the consequences to the core.

The TM was attended by 25 participants from six Member States and one international organization. The Russian representative had to cancel his participation at the last moment due to health reasons.

Presentations