Identification of damping mechanism of TRR-II reactor control rod during free fall insertion

In light water reactors, control rods are in general inserted into reactors by gravity. In order to achieve a rapid shutdown, it is required to insert control rods as fast as possible. On the other hand, a control rod with a fast falling velocity would impose a substantial impact to reactor structure as well as to the rod itself. Therefore, a damping force must come into effect, especially during the final stage of the free fall of the control rod. The purpose of this study is to develop a mathematical model and a numerical simulation to describe and identify the damping mechanism; and apply this model to the design of the control rod used in TRR-II reactor of the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER) of Taiwan. The damping effect of a falling control rod comes from two factors: the viscous shear stress occurred in a narrow gap between the rod and an outer tube which confines the lateral movement of the rod, and the pressure force exerted on the rod by the compressed water under the rod. The viscous shear stress can be analyzed by assuming a couette flow between the rod and the outer tube similar to the viscous force occurred in rheology. In doing this, the flow rate in each flow path is closely related to the pressure gradient in the flow path and can be evaluated using an electrical circuit analogy. The results of the code prediction were compared to the experimental results as carried out by the INER. Finally, a parametric study was applied to estimate the effects of the various factors including gap thickness, size of the flow holes, and other geometric considerations on the rod falling velocity. The results of this study can serve some technical support during the stage of rod design and manufacture.