Three-dimensional study on the hydraulic characteristics under the steam generator (SG) tube plugging operations for AP1000

Pressurized water reactors (PWRs) use Steam Generators (SG) to transfer the reactor core heat to the secondary loop. The SG contains thousands of heat transfer tubes and tubes plugging operation is always adopted to solve the heat transfer tubes rupture problems caused by the complex operation conditions, including thermal stress, radiation environment and material corrosion. However, tubes plugging operation has great impact on the SG hydraulic performance which leading to some safety issues in nuclear power plants (NPP). In this paper, the AP1000 SG primary side three-dimensional thermal hydraulic simulation model is built using porous media method, in which the important parameters are achieved employing the separate tube simulations. An innovative grid mark method is proposed to realize the flexible tubes plugging conditions. The tubes plugging fractions varies from 5% to 20%, and the effects of tubes plugging locations are also considered. The detailed flow fields in whole AP1000 SG primary side are achieved. The large eddies and some small vortexes are generated in the inlet side of bottom channel head. The momentum loss mechanism is revealed in the whole SG primary loop. Results show that the pressure drop in primary loop increases with the plugging fraction and varies with different tubes plugging positions. The pressure drop goes up to 492.77 KPa in case that the tubes plugging fraction reaches 20%. The tubes plugging position affects the results significantly in case that the plugging fraction is larger than 15%. This work is meaningful for the depth understanding of AP1000 SG tube plugging operations and provides a guideline for the SG maintenance strategy during the whole plant lifetime.