THERMOFLUID ANALYSIS OF HOT GAS DUCT AND HELIUM BLOWER OF REAKTOR DAYA EKSPERIMENTAL USING RELAP5 VISA

Pebble Bed High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR) is one of the nuclear reactor types that were promoted to be built by the Indonesian National Nuclear Energy Agency through the Experimental Reactor Power (Reaktor Daya Eksperimental; RDE) development program. This reactor is considered to have a good passive safety system with a design that is resistant to cooling system failure including earthquake shocks. Design and safety analysis of the primary system of RDE, including the hot gas duct and helium blower system, is very important. The purpose of this research is to design a hot gas duct and helium blower system as a part of the RDE’s primary cooling system. The design was performed by a thermofluid analysis using RELAP5 ViSA code. Main target design parameters of the RDE’s primary cooling system are helium mass flow rate, temperature, and pressure in both hot and cold pipe of the hot gas duct. The results showed that the hot gas duct and helium blower system are able to achieve the target design parameter with the maximum error values of 2%. In addition, fibre insulation material (91% of Al2O3 and 9% of SiO2) can reduce the heat transfer rate in a hot gas duct. We also found that pure SiO2 material has better performance in reducing the heat transfer rate compared to pure Al2O3 material