Assessment of accident management measures on early in-vessel station blackout sequence at VVER-1000 pressurized water reactors

In the process of elaboration and evaluation of severe accident management guidelines, the assessment of the accident management measures and procedures plays an important role. This paper investigates the early in-vessel phase accident progression of a hypothetical station blackout scenario for a generic VVER-1000 pressurized water reactor. The study focuses on the following accident management measures: primary side depressurization with passive safety systems injection, secondary side depressurization with passive feeding from the feedwater system, and a combination of the both procedures. The analyses have been done with the mechanistic computer code ATHLET. The simulations give in-depth analyses of the reactor system behaviour, assessment of the time margins till heating up of the reactor core and insights into physical phenomena which can influence the passive feeding procedures for cooling of the reactor core. The simulation results show that such accident management measures can significantly prolong the time till core degradation. Maximum delay for core heat up can be achieved by sequentially realization of the secondary and primary side bleed and feed strategies. Due to reversed heat transfer in the steam generators or caused by the depressurization itself a part of the injected water is evaporated. Evaporation or flashing in the feedwater system can lead to an intermittent water injection, thus reducing the effectiveness of the feeding procedure.