Pressure Transient Analysis in Piping Systems Including the Effects of Plastic Deformation and Cavitation

Computational methods for analyzing pressure transients in the intermediate heat transport system of a sodium-cooled breeder reactor are being developed at Argonne National Laboratory. The pressure pulses produced by a sodium/water reaction in a steam generator may plastically deform sections of the piping, and wave interactions may then produce cavitation in the system. Both these phenomena have a large effect on the pressure pulses traversing the pipe network and, consequently, on the transient loading on major components. Comparisons will be shown between predictions of the PTA-2 computer code and the results of experiments performed at Stanford Research Institute. In these experiments, a pressure pulse caused plastic deformation of a thin-walled pipe, producing a rarefaction wave which then produced a cavitated region in another pipe.