The control rod assembly controls reactor power by adjusting its position during normal operation and shuts down chain reactions by its free drop under scram conditions. Therefore, the drop performance of the control rod assembly is important for the safety of a nuclear reactor. In this study, the drop performance of the conceptually designed control rod assembly for the prototype generation IV sodium-cooled fast reactor that is being developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute as a next-generation nuclear reactor was experimentally investigated. | Drop performance test of conceptually designed control rod assembly for prototype generation iv sodium cooled fast reactor N u c l e a r E n g i n e e r i n g a n d T e c h n o l o g y 4 9 ( 2 0 1 7 ) 8 5 5 e8 6 4 Available online at ScienceDirect Nuclear Engineering and Technology journal homepage: Technical Note Drop Performance Test of Conceptually Designed Control Rod Assembly for Prototype Generation IV Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Young-Kyu Lee, Jae-Han Lee, Hoe-Woong Kim, Sung-Kyun Kim, and Jong-Bum Kim* Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor NSSS Design Division, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, 989-111 Daedeok-daero, Yuseong-gu, Daejeon 305-353, Republic of Korea article info abstract Article history: The control rod assembly controls reactor power by adjusting its position during normal Received 5 October 2016 operation and shuts down chain reactions by its free drop under scram conditions. Received in revised form Therefore, the drop performance of the control rod assembly is important for the safety of 5 December 2016 a nuclear reactor. In this study, the drop performance of the conceptually designed control Accepted 13 December 2016 rod assembly for the prototype generation IV sodium-cooled fast reactor that is being Available online 3 January 2017 developed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute as a next-generation nuclear reactor was experimentally investigated. For the performance test, the test facility and test Keywords: procedure were established first, and several free drop performance tests of the control rod Control Rod Assembly assembly under different flow rate conditions were then carried out. Moreover, perfor- Drop Time mance tests under several types and magnitudes of seismic loading conditions were also Drop Velocity conducted to investigate the effects of seismic loading on the drop performance of the Free Drop control rod assembly. The drop time of .
