Numerical Study of Passive Catalytic Recombiner for Hydrogen Mitigation

A significant amount of hydrogen is expected to be released within the containment of a water cooled power reactor after a severe accident. To reduce the risk of deflagration/detonation various means for hydrogen control have been adopted all over the world. Passive catalytic recombiner with vertical flat catalytic plate is one of such hydrogen mitigating device. Passive catalytic recombiners are designed for the removal of hydrogen generated in order to limit the impact of possible hydrogen combustion. Inside a passive catalytic recombiner, numerous thin steel sheets coated with catalyst material are vertically arranged at the bottom opening of a sheet metal housing forming parallel flow channels for the surrounding gas atmosphere. Already below conventional flammability limits, hydrogen and oxygen react exothermally on the catalytic surfaces forming harmless steam. Detailed numerical simulations and experiments are required for an in-depth knowledge of such plate type catalytic recombiners. Specific finite volume based in-house CFD code has been developed to model and analyse the working of these recombiner. The code has been used to simulate the recombiner device used in the Gx-test series of Battelle-Model Containment (B-MC) experiments. The present paper briefly describes the working principle of such passive catalytic recombiner and salient feature of the CFD model developed at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC). Finally results of the calculations and comparison with existing data are discussed.