Experimental study on natural circulation and its stability in a heavy liquid metal loop

Motivated by the increasing interest in heavy liquid metal (HLM) cooled fast reactors and accelerator driven system (ADS), the TALL test facility was designed and constructed at KTH to investigate the thermal-hydraulic characteristics of HLM. In this paper, the HLM natural circulation characteristics in a HLM loop were investigated with experiments in the TALL test facility. The study includes measurements on (1) start-up of natural circulation from different initial conditions; (2) stability of natural circulation; (3) effects of influencing parameters and (4) capability of natural circulation. The experimental data are compared to predictions with a relevant code (RELAP5). Significant natural convection flow was observed in the experiments. It was found that the natural circulation was easily established and stabilized. It took only a few minutes to have a stable natural circulation prevailing from cold conditions. The natural circulation flowrate depends on the loop resistance, and the temperature difference between the hot leg and the cold leg, as determined by the power level and the heat sink capacity. The experiments show that the maximum flowrate for the natural circulation is ∼0.5 kg/s (corresponding to ∼0.5 m/s in the heat exchanger), resulting in heat removal of ∼15 kW from the core tank, which is comparable to the capacity of ∼100 W/cm of the electric heater elements. The preliminary analysis performed with the RELAP5 code is in reasonable agreement with the experimental data.