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In sodium systems, leakage is one of the safety concerns; it can cause chemical reactions, which may result in fires. There are contact and non-contact types of leak detectors, and the conventional method of non-contact type detection is by gas sampling. Because of the complexity of this method, there has always been a need for a simple gas sensor, and the resistive-type nanostructure ZnO sensor is a promising option with various advantages. In this study, a ZnO sensor was fabricated, and the concept was tested as a leak detector using a dedicated experiment facility. The experiment results showed distinctive changes in resistance with the presence of sodium aerosol under various conditions. Replacing the conventional gas sampling with the ZnO sensors is expected to enable identification of the leakage location if used as a point-wise instrumentation and to greatly reduce the total cost, making the system simple, light, and effective. For further study, more tests will be performed to evaluate the sensitivity of key parameters under various conditions.

Since the leakage of sodium in an SFR (sodium-cooled fast reactor) causes an explosion upon reaction with air and water, sodium leakages represent an important safety issue. In this study, a novel technique for improving the reliability of sodium leakage detection applying DDVR (dynamic data validation and reconciliation) is proposed and verified to resolve this technical issue. DDVR is an approach that aims to improve the accuracy of a target system in a dynamic state by minimizing random errors, such as from the uncertainty of instruments and the surrounding environment, and by eliminating gross errors, such as instrument failure, miscalibration, or aging, using the spatial redundancy of measurements in a physical model and the reliability information of the instruments. DDVR also makes it possible to estimate the state of unmeasured points. To validate this approach for supporting sodium leakage detection, this study applies experimental data from a sodium leakage detection experiment performed by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute. The validation results show that the reliability of sodium leakage detection is improved by cooperation between DDVR and hardware measurements. Based on these findings, technology integrating software and hardware approaches is suggested to improve the reliability of sodium leakage detection by presenting the expected true state of the system.

The STELLA-2 is a large-scale sodium thermal-hydraulic integral effect test facility and supports the development of PGSFR. The facility adopted Pump Simulation Loop System (PSLS) concept for the mechanical sodium pump in the reference reactor to control and to measure the primary sodium flow. Since the component (mechanical pump) is replaced by the loop, it is very important to evaluate the similarity between the pump and the loop. In this paper, to simulate the characteristic of the mechanical sodium pump, the pressure loss along the various options of the loop was evaluated and the comprehensive validity of each design options was analyzed. Using the similarity criteria based on the Richardson number and Euler number conservation, the PSLS design was finalized and the result was within the acceptable error range. Finally, the result of this study was used for construction of the overall facility, STELLA-2.

The pressure measurement in the high-temperature liquid metal system, such as Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor(SFR), is important and yet it is very challenging due to its nature. The measuring pressure is relatively at low range and the applied temperature varies in wide range. Moreover, the pressure transfer material in impulse line needs to considered the high temperature condition. The conventional diaphragm-based approach cannot be used for it is impossible to remove the effect of thermal expansion. In this paper, the Fiber Bragg Grating(FBG) sensor-based pressure measuring concept is suggested that it is free of problems induced by the thermal expansion. To verify this concept, a prototype was fabricated and tested in an appropriate conditions. The uncertainty analysis result of the experiment is also included. The final result of this study clearly showed that the FBG-based pressure transmitter system is applicable to the extreme environment, such as SFR and any other high-temperature liquid metal system and the measurement uncertainty is within reasonable range.

ABSTRACTASME BPVC Section VIII Division 2 (‘ASME VIII(2)’) and ASME B31.1 are being used not only for low-temperature design but also for high-temperature design in the creep range in supercritical thermal power plants. However, creep effects in ASME VIII(2) and B31.1 are taken into account implicitly, and there could be significant technical issues in terms of conservatism in the case of long-term operation in the creep range because their design evaluation results do not change across plant operation time. The conservatisms of ASME VIII(2) and B31.1 have been quantified based on comparisons with nuclear-grade design rules of ASME BPVC Section III Division 5 and RCC-MRx which take creep hold time into account explicitly. It was shown that ASME VIII(2) and B31.1 results could be non-conservative if operation time exceeds a certain time limit, which raises concerns around non-conservatism in the case of long-term operation within the creep range.

The STELLA program was launched to support the PGSFR development in 2012 and for the 2nd stage, the STELLA-2 facility was designed to investigate the integral effect of safety systems including the comprehensive interaction among PHTS, IHTS and DHRS. In STELLA-2, the long-term transient behavior after accidents can be observed and the overall safety aspect can also be evaluated. In this paper, the basic design concept from engineering basis to specific design is described. The design was aimed to meet similarity criteria and requirements based on various non-dimensional numbers and the result satisfied the key features to explain the reasoning of safety evaluation. The result of this study was used to construct the facility and the experiment is on-going. In general, the final design meets the similarity criteria of the multi-dimensional physics inside the reactor pool. And also, for the conservation of natural circulation phenomena, the design meets the similarity requirements of geometry and thermo-dynamic behavior.

The construction of STELLA-2 facility is on-going to demonstrate the safety system of PGSFR and to provide comprehensive understanding of transient behavior under DBEs. Considering that most events are single-phase natural circulation flow with slow transient, STELLA-2 was designed with reduced-height of 1/5 length scale. The ratio of volume to surface area in the vessel can relatively increase resulting in excessive heat transfer. Therefore, a steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis was performed and the effect of design change to reduce the heat transfer through redan was investigated. The heat transfer through single wall redan in STELLA-2 was 3% of the core power, comparable to 1% of the core power in PGSFR. By applying the insulated redan, about 70% of decrease effect was observed. The effect on transient behavior was also evaluated. The conclusion of this study was directly applied to the STELLA-2 design and the modified version is under construction.

The STELLA-2 facility is a large-scale sodium test facility to support the development of PGSFR and is accumulating extensive experiment data. The experiment campaigns of STELLA-2 are mostly planned to be transient and therefore it is very challenging to analyze and quantify the amount of heat loss. In this study, a deliberate heat rejection at arbitrary points to consider the heat loss is discussed and the comparison result between the experiment and code calculation is described. The code calculation with heat loss indicates improvement in prediction and it was verified that the behavior of heat transfer in IHTS loops was mostly influenced by the heat loss. For further study, the heat loss effect on other experiments will be evaluated in the coming years.

This study explores the application of Raman scattering-based optical fiber sensors (OFSs) in extreme environments, specifically focusing on a loop heater vessel with temperatures ranging from 200°C to 680°C. This condition generally covers the advanced reactor designs, such as Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor and High Temperature Reactor. Various optical fiber combinations were employed for temperature measurements, taking into consideration the operating temperature of the target equipment. Two types of OFSs, gold-coated and polyimide-coated, were utilized. Protective tubes made of stainless steel (STS) and carbon were introduced to ensure reliable temperature data collection in high-temperature settings. Results indicate that the STS tube with a gold-coated OFS exhibited the highest consistency and agreement with thermocouple measurements, making it suitable for extreme environments. The study emphasizes the applicability of this system in high-temperature environments, such as liquid metal reactors, high-temperature thermal energy storage system, and hydrogen production system, for environmental monitoring.