Main Vessel Stress Analysis And Evaluation Of Lead-bismuth Cooled Reactor

Lead-based material has advantages of weak neutron absorption and moderation ability, low melting point, high boiling point, good chemical stability, lead-based reactor has become the main development direction of the fourth generation reactors and accelerator driven systems. Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (INEST, CAS) undertakes the design and key technology research of China LEAd-based research Reactor.Lead-based reactor mostly adopts the integration pool type structure, low-pressure main circuit system, thus can simplify the design of reactor and has a high inherent safety. As the pressure boundary loop, the main vessel is an important part of the entire reactor system, the safety and reliability of the main vessel is critical for the safe operation of the whole reactor. Therefore, the mechanical analysis of the main vessel is very necessary and meaningful.This paper refers to the preliminary design of China LEAd-based Reactor and uses the finite element method to do the calculation. This paper mainly carried out the stress calculation of the main vessel under design condition, accident condition and experimental condition, then evaluating the results based on ASME standards.The results show that the stress calculation of the three conditions meets the requirement of the ASME standard. With the thickness of vessel increasing, its stress and strain decreases; with the diameter of vessel increasing, its stress and strain increases; with the height of vessel increasing, its stress and strain increases, the height of vessel affects its stress and deformation least.