Quantitative prediction of natural circulation in an LMFR with a similarity law and a water test Original Research Article

This paper is devoted to logical derivation of a similarity law for single-phase natural circulation expected in a liquid metal fast reactor (LMFR). Though the way of the derivation is principally conventional, this paper shows that explicit definition of a representative velocity and a representative temperature difference, as used in previous studies, is generally inappropriate in formulating a similitude law. The paper also presents formulae which allow to directly convert water test results into actual plant values. Using the conversion formulae, it is demonstrated that data acquired in a small scale water experiment can be converted and the results are comparable with results of actual LMFR computation. The accuracy of the experimental prediction is discussed.