More than a Decade of Data to Ensure a Lifetime of Reactor Safety

Earlier this year, researchers at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in Illinois completed a 14-year campaign to help inform the safety features of new advanced reactor designs.

The team performed an exhaustive list of experiments that successfully generated information developers can use to validate modeling codes and increase confidence in the safety calculations for new reactor concepts.

Years of research will translate into advanced reactor designs with enhanced passive safety features and cost savings tied to accelerated testing and validation.

Putting Passive Safety to the Test

Next-generation nuclear reactor designs are being developed with enhanced safety features. Described as being "walk away safe," these new designs leverage basic physics principles to maintain reactors in a safe shutdown condition without the need for human intervention, electrical power, or additional water.

To help reactor developers validate their passive safety designs, researchers at ANL's Natural Convection Shutdown Heat Removal Test Facility (NSTF) embarked on a 14-year test campaign to generate high-quality datasets that cover the fundamental physics behavior of air- and water-based passive decay heat removal systems.

Throughout the entire test campaign, researchers worked closely with advanced reactor developers and modified the facility to incorporate feedback.

The NSTF facility uses a system of heaters and water-filled chimneys to simulate post-shutdown heat generation and passive removal from a nuclear reactor core. All reactors must be able to safely remove this "decay heat" following shutdown to protect components from exceeding temperature limits.

The latest test campaign reflects changes made to the testing facility's system in 2016, which previously was configured to use air rather than water in the chimneys.

What's Next?

NSTF researchers have partnered with advanced reactor designers to provide vital insights regarding the design of passive decay heat removal systems. Several reactor vendors engaged with the NSTF team are considering future work that will use the NSTF facility to perform industry-lab partnerships in support of specific future needs.

The team's work spotlights the Department of Energy's commitment to nuclear energy innovation walking hand-in-hand with industry to enable enhanced safety systems that improve reliability while reducing costs.

Work was completed through the Office of Nuclear Energy's Advanced Reactor Technologies Program, which is dedicated to advancing innovative Generation IV nuclear energy technologies through research, development, and deployment.

Learn more about the Natural Convection Shutdown Heat Removal Test Facility.