To study filtration capacity of sump strainers of Loviisa VVER-440 NPP, a scaled down test rig was designed and constructed at Lappeenranta University of Technology in 2008. The test rig consists of a boron solution tank (volume 1.35 m³), an insulation material tank (0.8 m³), a sump strainer tank (0.8 m³), a sump strainer, a full-scale VVER-440 fuel assembly model, pumps, fine filters (#0.2 mm), piping (DN40), electric heaters, valves, measurement instrumentation and a data acquisition system. The bottoms and walls of the tanks and the piping are insulated with 50 mm thick mineral wool to reduce heat losses.
The test facility is equipped with temperature, pressure difference and flow rate measurements. During the experiments the events inside the sump strainer tank and the fuel assembly model can be recorded with a video camera through the polycarbonate windows on the tank wall and the fuel assembly casing.
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