Development of a hydrogen diffusion gothic model of MARK III-containment

Abstract

Abstract The accident that occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is a reminder of the danger of hydrogen explosion within a reactor building. Sufficiently high hydrogen concentration may cause an explosion that could damage the structure, resulting in the release of radioisotopes into the environment. In the first part of this study, a gas diffusion experiment was performed, in which helium was used as the working fluid. An analytical model was also developed using the GOTHIC code and the model predictions of the helium distribution were found to be in good agreement with the experimentally measured data. In the second part of the study, a model of the Mark III containment of the Kuosheng Plant in Taiwan was developed, and was applied to a long-term station blackout (SBO) accident similar to that of the Fukushima plant. The hydrogen generation was calculated using the Modular Accident Analysis Program and was used as the boundary condition for the GOTHIC containment model. The simulation results revealed that the hydrogen concentration at the first floor of the wetwell in the containment reached 4% 9.7 h after the accident. This indicated the possibility of dangerous conditions inside the containment. Although active hydrogen ignitors are already installed in the Kuosheng plant, the findings of this study indicate that it may be necessary to add passive recombiners to prolong an SBO event.