(The) effect of foam solution to aerosol capture flow for the mitigation of a severe accident at a nuclear power plant

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of the atomization of liquid droplets on the aerosol removal for the mitigation of severe accidents at NPPs. Experiments are conducted to examine the aerosol and its removal. UV-Vis is used to analyze the samples, and calibration based on the Beer-Lambert law and linear curve fitting is considered. The calibration data follow the Beer-Lambert law well. The molar concentration of the samples is verified based on the calibration and UV-Vis. In order to observe the atomization of the liquids, ANSYS Fluent is used for the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. While the data from ANSYS Fluent is not exact, the trend of the atomization can be predicted. The CFD results demonstrate that the foam solution is more atomized than the tap water, because the surface tension of the foam solution is half that of the tap water. The experiments are performed using a 1/50th scale experimental setup. In order to perform the experiments, tap water and a foam solution, which is 0.75 wt% sodium lauryl sulphate in tap water, are prepared. Then, the results of the tap water and foam solution are compared. When the foam solution is used as the spray material, the aerosol capture is enhanced compared with the tap water, because the foam solution has a larger number of droplets in the same amount of space.