Experimental investigation of iodine removal and containment depressurization in containment spray system test facility of 700 MWe Indian pressurized heavy water reactors

Abstract As an additional safety measure in the new 700 MWe Indian pressurized heavy water reactors, the first of a kind system called containment Spray System is introduced. The system is designed to cater/mitigate the conditions after design basis accidents i.e., loss of coolant accident and main steam line break. As a contribution to the safety analysis of condition following loss-of-coolant accidents, experiments are carried out to establish the performance of the system. The loss of coolant is simulated by injecting saturated steam and iodine vapors into the containment vessel in which air is enclosed at atmospheric and room temperature, and then the steam-air mixture is cooled by sprays of water. The effect of water spray on the containment vessel pressure and the iodine scrubbing in a scaled down facility is investigated for the containment spray system of Indian pressurized heavy water reactors. The experiments are carried out in the scaled down vessel of the diameter of 2.0 m and height of 3.5 m respectively. Experiments are conducted with water at room temperature as the spray medium. Two different initial vessel pressure i.e. 0.7 bar and 1.0 bar are chosen for the studies as they are nearing the loss of coolant accident & main steam line break pressures in Indian pressurized heavy water reactors. These pressures are chosen based on the containment resultant pressures after a design basis accident. The transient temperature and pressure distribution of the steam in the vessel are measured during the depressurization. The pressure and temperature history of the system is measured using high temperature pressure transmitter and the K-type thermocouples. The iodine scrubbing is measured through periodic sampling from the vessel. The influence of the Sauter mean diameter (SMD) is studied on the depressurization rate of the vessel at different vessel pressures. Studies are performed to optimize the containment spray system configuration and to establish the phenomena with respect to Indian pressurized heavy water reactors. In all the experiments, the spray flow rate is kept constant, while the SMD is varied by using different spray nozzles.