Development of Quantitative Analytical Procedures on Two-Phase Flow in Tight-Lattice Fuel Bundles for Reduced-Moderation Light-Water Reactors

R&D project to investigate thermal-hydraulic performance in tight-lattice rod bundles for Reduced-Moderation Water Reactor (RMWR) has started at Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) in collaboration with power companies, reactor vendors, universities since 2002. The RMWR is a light water reactor which a higher conversion ratio more than one can be expected. In order to attain this higher conversion ratio, triangular tight-lattice fuel bundles which gap spacing between each fuel rod is around 1 mm are required. As for the thermal design of the RMWR core, conventional analytical methods are no good because the conventional composition equations can not predict the RMWR core with high accuracy. Then, development of new quantitative analytical procedures was carried out. Those analytical procedures are constructed by model experiments and advanced two-phase flow analysis codes. This paper describes the results of the model experiments and analytical results with the developed analysis codes.