Assessment on Integrity of BWR Internals Against Impact Load by Water Hammer Under Conditions of Reactivity Initiated Accidents

The integrity of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) head and reactor internals was assessed by means of fluid and fluid-structural coupled analyses to evaluate the water hammer phenomenon arising from postulated high burnup fuel failure under reactivity initiated accident (RIA) conditions. The fluid viscosity effect on the water column burst as well as the complex three-dimensional flow paths caused by a core shroud and standpipes were considered in this study. It is shown that fluid viscosity becomes an influential factor to dissipate impacting kinetic energy. Integrity of the RPV head and the shroud head was ensured with a sufficient level of margin even under these excessively conservative RIA conditions.