Up to this time, the design of Pressurizers in Nuclear Power Plants has been quite empirical due to the deficiency of standard thermodynamic relationships when applied to the solution of two phase systems. Recently, a new thermodynamic approach was expounded to the 2nd Nuclear Engineering and Science Conference which attempts to deal with the problem of two phase systems by breaking the thermodynamic unit into various subsystems and solving each separately. However, no experimental proof of the new theory was given.
The object of this investigation was to prove or disprove the validity of this new thermodynamic approach as applied to the prediction of the performance of a Pressurizer. A small, simplified model of a pressurizer was constructed, and surge tests were conducted. The surges were then calculated by means of the new thermodynamic equations and compared with the actual results.
It was found that the prediction of pressurizer surges depends greatly upon the exactness to which the transient heat loss to the walls of the pressurizer can be calculated. Nevertheless, the use of standard heat transfer relationships when used in the theoretical surge equations, predicted the pressure surges to within 40%. An attempt to obtain closer theoretical results by determining the transient heat loss from pressure and temperature decay curves was unsuccessful due to improper pressure recording equipment.
Some doubt has been cast on one of the assumptions of the theoretical equations, in that the pressurizer steam was not compressed isentropically as assumed. It is felt that this deviation from the theoretical was due to the small size of the model pressurizer, but proof of this is left to future experimenters.
This investigation did prove that with this new thermodynamic approach of subsystems, and with the use of standard heat transfer expressions, the performance of nuclear power plant pressurizers can be predicted within reasonable limits. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Mechanical Engineering, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/40327 |
| Date | January 1957 |
| Creators | Yaremy, Eugene Miron |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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