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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

RELAP5-3D Assessment Using High Temperature Test Facility Test PG-22

The RELAP5-3D computer code has been assessed using data from Test PG 22 in Oregon State University’s High Temperature Test Facility. Test PG 22 investigated the gas exchange between the primary coolant system helium and the reactor cavity simulation tank nitrogen following a heatup from ambient temperature. The heatup was terminated when the coolant temperature rise across the core reached 125°C. The code generally under predicted coolant and structure temperatures, likely the result of under predicting the core temperature and stored energy during the initial heatup, although there were no measured values to compare with. A full-loop natural circulation flow that occurred in the test was not predicted in any of the simulations.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2019

OSU High Temperature Test Facility Test Acceptance Report, PG-28 Low Power (<350kW) Lower Plenum Mixing Test

Test Acceptance Report for Test PG-28 at the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility. The purpose of this test is to investigate the impact on Lower Plenum thermal profiles and mixing due to changes in the system mass flow rate in an integral test facility scaled to General Atomics’ Modular High Temperature Gas Reactor (MHTGR) design.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2019

OSU High Temperature Test Facility Test Acceptance Report, PG-29 Low Power (<350kW) Double Ended Inlet-Outlet Crossover Duct Break, Hybrid Heater

Test Acceptance Report for Test PG-29 at the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility. The purpose of this test is to examine the progression of the Double Ended Inlet-Outlet Crossover Duct Break transient in an integral test facility scaled to General Atomics’ Modular High Temperature Gas Reactor (MHTGR) design.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2019

OSU High Temperature Test Facility Test Acceptance Report, PG-30 Low Power (<350kW) Lower Plenum Mixing, Constant Temperature Test

Test Acceptance Report for Test PG-30 at the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility. The purpose of this test is to investigate the impact on Lower Plenum thermal profiles and mixing due to changes in the system mass flow rate in an integral test facility scaled to General Atomics’ Modular High Temperature Gas Reactor (MHTGR) design.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2019

OSU High Temperature Test Facility Test Acceptance Report, PG-31 Low Power (<350kW) Pressure Vessel Bottom Break with Restored Forced Convection Cooling Test

Test Acceptance Report for Test PG-31 at the Oregon State University High Temperature Test Facility. The purpose of this test is to examine the progression of the Pressure Vessel Bottom Break with Restored Forced Convection Cooling transient in an integral test facility scaled to General Atomics’ Modular High Temperature Gas Reactor (MHTGR) design.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2018

RELAP5-3D Pre-test Prediction for High Temperature Test Facility Test PG-26

The RELAP5-3D computer code has been used to perform a pre-test prediction for Test PG-26 in the High Temperature Test Facility at Oregon State University. Test PG-26 will simulate a pressurized conduction cooldown transient following a trip of the primary coolant system gas circulator. The facility is initialized with a steady-state power of 700 kW and prototypic core inlet and outlet helium coolant temperatures of 259 and 687°C, respectively. Sensitivity calculations addressed the flow coastdown time, the reactor cavity cooling system flow rate and temperature, and decay power.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Commissioning and Testing of a new 4.5K Cold Box for JLab Cryogenic Test Facility

A new 4.5K cold box at Jefferson Lab (JLab) Cryogenic Test Facility (CTF) was recently installed and commissioned to upgrade the existing 4.5 K refrigeration system and work in parallel with the existing 4.5 K cold box. This new 4.5 K cold box is equipped with two turbo-expanders and, at its maximum capacity condition, it is expected to support at least 6.6 g/s of helium liquefaction or 650 W of refrigeration at 4.5 K. It can also handle up to 10 g/s 30 K return flow for 2 K refrigeration recovery that supports cryo-module and superconducting cavity testing. Performances of the cold box at its maximum capacity conditions as well as several other operating modes were tested for acceptance. Finally, we will briefly review the new 4.5 K cold box design features and discuss the commissioning and performance testing results.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2020

RELAP5-3D Modeling of High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) Test PG-26

The High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) at Oregon State University (OSU) is a scaled integral effects experiment designed to investigate transient behavior in high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactors with prismatic fuel and reflector blocks. Several tests have been completed, and more are still planned to at the HTTF, including depressurized conduction cooldown (DCC) and pressurized conduction cooldown (PCC) transients. This report analyses test PG-26, a progression of the Double Ended Inlet-Outlet Crossover Duct Break transient that is referred to as a DCC. PG-26 has been performed at the HTTF between May 30 and June 30, 2019. Core initial conditions (i.e., before the DCC started) have been met using low power (<100 kW) and two of ten available electric heaters. The DCC transient was initiated during the 50 th hour of the test. The break valves were opened, and hot helium from the core and cold helium from the reactor cavity simulation tank (RCST) started mixing. The gases flowed in a countercurrent fashion, where the top half of the hot duct contained hot helium that flowed in one direction and cold helium that flowed in the other direction in the bottom half of the duct. After the pressure and density reached equilibrium, the event entered a diffusion mode. The onset of a reverse natural circulation was not observed during the DCC period of the test. Version 4.4.2ie of the RELAP5-3D computer code has been used to model the HTTF PG-26 test, and results have been compared to available high-quality measured data. The model used in this study is the quality-controlled HTTF RELAP5-3D model (HTTF base 2018-04-19 QA), originally developed by P. Bayless. The report includes RELAP5-3D results of the “base calculations” as well as some sensitivities to important uncertain model inputs, such as primary helium mass flow rate, core ceramic thermal properties, as well as heat evacuation and loop friction models. Using the base RELAP5-3D model predicts a countercurrent helium flow in the hot duct observed at the beginning of the DCC, but instead of going into a molecular diffusion mode, the model predicts the onset of natural convection. Increasing friction in the core and hot duct prevents the natural convection from happening in some of the simulations. Although some temperatures are well predicted (and even overpredicted), the general tendency is to underpredict the ceramic and helium temperatures and heat removal rates during the DCC, resulting in many of the assessment findings being in minimal or insufficient agreement with the data. It is worth noting that the described discrepancies between measured data and RELAP5-3D predictions are not RELAP5-3D code limitations. More so, they reflect limitations in boundary condition and thermal property knowledge. While the RELAP5-3D calculations of the test provide some insights into what happens during the transient, and point to missing or potentially uncertain data to which the experimenters can direct their attention, the principal conclusion is that the PG-26 test data are insufficient for a system code assessment.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2021

A Proposed Beam-Beam Test Facility COMBINE

The COmpact Machine for Beam-beam Interactions in Non-Equilibrium systems (COMBINE) is a proposed, dedicated, beam-beam test facility. This is currently a joint effort between Jefferson Lab and Old Dominion University to create a small, low energy pair of collider rings that would be used to study beam-beam interactions, as well as act as a teaching tool for students. The base design would make use of a pair of identical rings (2.5 meters per side) one rotated 180 degrees from the other, meeting at their common interaction point. These would be fed by an electron gun producing up to 125 keV electrons. The low energy will allow for beam-beam tune shifts commensurate with existing colliders, and will also allow for an exploration of the predicted effects of gear-changing, which would be performed using a variable pathlength scheme. Finally, this machine can also test linac-ring type systems.

Nissen, Edith↗
DOE OSTI2024

High Temperature Test Facility At Scale Testing, Validation, and Demonstration

Theses slides will be used to brief the Tribal DOE and Council Chairman for the project listed below. The High Temperature Test Facility (HTTF) is a demonstration-scale high temperature electrolysis (HTE) system that provides the ability to produce, process, store, and dispense electrolytically produced hydrogen. The system will be designed to accommodate electrolysis systems from various industry partners. The HTTF will be supplied up to 10 MW of power for electrolysis at 5 separate test article locations, each up to 2MW. The system will include post-processing and compression, storage, and capabilities to provide hydrogen for consumption by future end users. The HTTF will also provide the ability to test and demonstrate an HTE system in a configuration that would simulate the use of a nuclear generated steam supply for the high temperature heat source. The HTTF will be located at the Central Facilities Area (CFA) adjacent to CFA-686 on the INL site, 45 miles west of Idaho Falls.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2015

Status of the ELISE test facility

The test facility ELISE, equipped with a large radio frequency (RF) driven ion source (1×0.9 m2) of half the size of the ion source for the ITER neutral beam injection (NBI) system, is operational since beginning of 2013. The first experimental campaign was dedicated to a thorough qualification of the test facility and its diagnostic tools at low RF power (80 kW in total, i.e. 20 kW per driver) in volume operation, i.e. operation without cesium, where the negative hydrogen ion production is done in the plasma volume only. This paper reports on the main results of the second and third experimental campaigns, where Cs was inserted in the ion source for an enhancement of the negative ion production by the surface process. The second experimental campaign was done still with low RF power, both for hydrogen and deuterium, with pulse lengths of up to 500 s. The results of this campaign are rather encouraging, especially in hydrogen, where large current densities with respect to the low RF power could be achieved at a ratio of co-extracted electrons to extracted ions of 0.5-0.6 at the relevant source pressure of 0.3 Pa. Similar large extracted ion currents could be achieved also in deuterium, but with larger amounts of co-extracted electrons. The required ratio of co-extracted electrons to extracted ions of one could be achieved only in short pulses. The third experimental campaign aimed then for approaching the required ITER NBI parameters with respect to the ion and electron extracted currents, both for hydrogen and deuterium, by increasing the RF power with short pulses, i.e. beam-on times of up to 10 s and RF-on time up to 20 s. Current densities near the ITER NBI requirements could be achieved in hydrogen at a ratio of co-extracted electrons to extracted ions of 0.5-0.6 at the relevant source pressure of 0.3 Pa. As it was the case for the low RF operation, the required filter field was significantly lower than expected from the experience with the small prototype RF source. Similar large extracted ion currents could be achieved also in deuterium, but with larger amounts of co-extracted electrons; the main problem in deuterium operation are the non-stable currents of the co-extracted electrons, most probably caused by the high dynamic of the Cs redistribution in the system. The reasons for this larger instability are still under investigation.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

Report on Year-4 of Water NSTF Matrix Testing: Facility Maintenance and Accident Testing

Under support from the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Office of Advanced Reactor Technologies (ART), a large-scale test facility has been constructed at Argonne National Laboratory to generate NQA-1 qualified validation data for passive decay heat removal systems in advanced reactors. The Natural convection Shutdown heat removal Test Facility (NSTF) reflects key features of a ½ scale, water-based, Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) and is intended to study the behavior, bound performance, and ultimately guide design decisions for passive decay heat removal systems for advanced reactors. In addition to the experimental activities detailed in this report, a supportive computational modeling effort is on-going which has been demonstrated to significantly strengthen the experimental program while also improving accuracy of the computer models. Together these create a mutually beneficial relationship integral to meeting the overall program objective of examining the heat removal performance of the RCCS concept. This report serves as a summary of maintenance and experimental activities during the program’s fourth year of water-based operation. A planned six-month maintenance period began in August 2021, during which major inspections, repairs, cleaning, and installation of new instrumentation and data acquisition hardware were conducted. Most significantly, two heaters that faulted during Year-3 were repaired, allowing the facility to resume use of the full heated section area and full range of available electric power. The remainder of the year consisted of eight months of test operations, during which the facility logged 211 hours of active heating across one bake-out (following the maintenance period) and seven matrix tests; five classifieds as Accepted per NQA-1, one as Trending, and one as Failed. Testing began by performing two repeat cases to confirm expected facility response and behavior during both single- and two-phase flow conditions, ensuring no changes were introduced during the maintenance period that might have altered the thermal-hydraulic characteristics of the facility. In continuation of the power parametric series initiated in previous years, a high-power test case was then performed examining heat removal performance at a decay heat load equivalent to 2.4 MWt, full-scale, a level exceeding maximum design targets. Additional testing then introduced various blockage scenarios along the network piping, examining the effects of partial and complete blockages of the flow paths on the system behavior and heat removal performance. A study of static boiling tests directed at understanding the geysering two-phase instability was also conducted. The loop was filled only to the bottom of the tank outlet, creating an open loop configuration that prevents any natural circulation flow from occurring, and the heaters were powered on until the facility reached saturation conditions. Following, a series of quasi-steady-state conditions were introduced by adjusting the inventory level in the adiabatic chimney piping at decreasingly lower elevations above the heated region. A strong correlation of geysering characteristics and loop level was observed, with flow and temperature excursions decreasing in intensity, but increasing in frequency, as the fill were reduced to lower elevations along the chimney piping. Once the level fell very low in the chimney, at points near the top of the heated section, the system reached a stable state of continuous boiling without any occurrence of geysering eruptions. A final significant testing accomplishment this year was successful completion of an “accident scenario” test, whose operating conditions were based on a prototypic decay heat curve provided by Framatome and scaled for the NSTF. This test began by establishing steady-state, single-phase “normal operation” conditions, before simulating an accident trip where the availability of active cooling systems was lost. Loop temperatures gradually increased until reaching saturation and subsequent two-phase boiling flow. Over the course of an extended operational period along the defined decay heat curve, steam boil-off caused gradual but continued depletion of liquid inventory until reaching a critically low level causing flow stagnation and cessation of natural circulation heat removal. At this point, after nearly 72 hours of continuous operation, a cold refill was performed to replenish the system inventory and allow the facility to re-establish closed loop natural circulation flow and return to a safe operational state.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2016

The status of the SNS external antenna ion source and spare RFQ test facility

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory operates the Spallation Neutron Source, consisting of a H{sup −} ion source, a 1 GeV linac and an accumulator ring. The accumulated <1 μs-long, ∼35 A beam pulses are extracted from the ring at 60 Hz and directed onto a liquid Hg target. Spalled neutrons are directed to ∼20 world class instruments. Currently, the facility operates routinely with ∼1.2 MW of average beam power, which soon will be raised to 1.4 MW. A future upgrade with a second target station calls for raising the power to 2.8 MW. This paper describes the status of two accelerator components expected to play important roles in achieving these goals: a recently acquired RFQ accelerator and the external antenna ion source. Currently, the RFQ is being conditioned in a newly constructed 2.5 MeV Integrated Test Facility (ITF) and the external antenna source is also being tested on a separate test stand. This paper presents the results of experiments and the testing of these systems.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗