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Swiss nuclear power and the case for long-term operation
Designed for 40 years but built to last far longer, Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have all entered long-term operation. Yet age alone says little about safety or performance. Through continuous upgrades, strict regulatory oversight, and extensive aging management, the country’s reactors are being prepared for decades of continued operation, in line with international practice.
Wison Luangdilok, Hidetsugu Morota, Michael Epstein
Nuclear Technology | Volume 138 | Number 1 | April 2002 | Pages 44-57
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT02-A3276
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A model describing the propagation of buoyancy-driven flames and accelerated jet flames in a multicompartment building has been developed for lumped-parameter containment analysis codes. The model mimics the growth of flame fronts as observed from flame visualization experiments at Pisa University and captures the jet ignition phenomena observed in experiments at the Battelle Model Containment. The model establishes a complete scheme of flame propagation consisting of five flame modes, a fireball, a bubble, a prism, a spherical jet, and a planar jet. Through a flame transformation algorithm, flame propagation in a multicompartment system can be described by a birth and rebirth of these flame modes as many times as necessary until burning is complete. The model was implemented into the MAAP4 code. Comparison of the model prediction with Battelle's hydrogen test data (test H5) shows good agreement between the model and the experiment. The model correctly predicts the timing of jet ignition and the magnitude of pressure loads in the downstream compartment. The model was developed for the analysis of hydrogen deflagrations in any compartmentalized building including a reactor containment.