Air-ingress analysis: Part 1. Theoretical approach

Idaho National Laboratory (INL), under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is performing research and development that focuses on key phenomena important during potential scenarios that may occur in very high temperature gas-cooled reactors (VHTRs). Phenomena identification and ranking studies to date have ranked an air-ingress event, following on the heels of a VHTR depressurization, as important with regard to core safety. Consequently, the development of advanced air-ingress-related models and verification and validation data are a very high priority. Following a loss of coolant and system depressurization incident, air will enter the core of the VHTR through the break, possibly causing oxidation of the graphite core and reflector graphite structure. Simple core and plant models indicate that, under certain circumstances, the oxidation may proceed at an elevated rate with additional heat generated from the oxidation reaction itself. Under postulated conditions of fluid flow and temperature, excessive degradation of lower plenum graphite caused by graphite oxidation can lead to a loss of mechanical strength. Excessive oxidation of core graphite can also lead to a release of fission products into the confinement, which could be detrimental to reactor safety. Analytical models developed in this study will improve our understanding of this phenomenon. This paper presents two sets of analytical models for the qualitative assessment of the air-ingress phenomena. The results from the analytical models are compared with results of the computational fluid dynamic models (CFD) in the subsequent paper. The analytical models agree well with those CFD results.