ANALYSIS OF FLOW RESISTANCE INFLUENCE ON STEP-DOWN PROCESS OF THE CONTROL ROD HYDRAULIC DRIVE SYSTEM

Control rod hydraulic drive system (CRHDS) is a new type of built-in control rod drive technology which is invented by INET, Tsinghua University. The integrated valve (IV) is the main flow control component of the CRHDS. Flow resistance of IV has a great influence on the control rod dynamic step-down process. The step-down performance experiments of CRHDS with different flow resistance of IV were conducted under room temperature conditions. Meanwhile, the theoretical model of hydraulic cylinder step-down process was established and combined with the relationship of the flow resistance of IV under the experimental conditions to get the dynamic response of the hydraulic cylinder. The calculation results of theoretical model agree well with the experimental data. On this basis, the theoretical model of hydraulic cylinder step-down process was applied to the high temperature working conditions with different flow resistance of IV. The analysis results show that at higher working temperature, with the increase of the flow resistance of IV control rod step-down average velocity decreases and stepdown time increases correspondingly. There is an inflection point in the transient pressure curve and the pressure of the inflection point decreases gradually with the increase of the flow resistance. The pressure lag time after step-down also decreases. The research results lay the base for the design and optimization of the flow resistance of the IV for the CRHDS.