Hydraulic Studies on Core Components of PFBR

Detailed thermal hydraulic investigations are very 
essential for safe and reliable functioning of liquid metal cooled fast 
breeder reactors. These investigations are further more important for 
components with complex profile, since there is no direct correlation 
available in literature to evaluate the hydraulic characteristics of such 
components directly. In those cases available correlations for similar 
profile or geometries may lead to significant uncertainty in the 
outcome. Hence experimental approach can be adopted to evaluate 
these hydraulic characteristics more precisely for better prediction in 
reactor core components. 
Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR), a sodium cooled pool 
type reactor is under advanced stage of construction at Kalpakkam, 
India. Several components of this reactor core require hydraulic 
investigation before its usage in the reactor. These hydraulic 
investigations on full scale models, carried out by experimental 
approaches using water as simulant fluid are discussed in the paper. 

• G. K. Pandey
• D. Ramadasu
• I. Banerjee
• V. Vinod
• G. Padmakumar
• V. Prakash
• K. K. Rajan

• Fast Breeder Reactor
• Cavitation
• pressure drop
• Reactor components.

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