Recirculation Pump Discharge Line Break Tests at ROSA-III for a Boiling Water Reactor

Three loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) tests were conducted at the Rig of Safety Assessment (ROSA)-III test facility, which simulates boiling water reactor (BWR)/6-251 with a volumetric scaling factor of 1/424. The fundamental features of the recirculation pump discharge line break LOCA and the effects of break areas on the features are investigated. It has been confirmed experimentally that the LOCA phenomena in the discharge line break are analogous to those in the suction line break with the same effective choking flow area, which is a sum of the least choking flow areas along the break flow paths and controls the system pressure responses. In general, the maximum effective choking flow area is (A_j + A_p) for discharge line breaks and (A_j + A₀) for suction line breaks, where A_j, A_p, and A₀ are the flow areas of the jet pump drive nozzles, the main recirculation pump discharge nozzle, and the break, respectively. The similarity between the ROSA-III test and a BWR LOCA has been confirmed in the key phenomena by the analyses using the RELAP5/MOD1 code. An atypical behavior is observed in the fuel rod surface temperature transient in the early phase of blowdown due to the limitation of the ROSA-III initial core power.