several countries have been pioneering the development and application of ocean nuclear power plants utilizing the innovative features of Small Modular Reactors. A shell-and-tube heat exchanger has been used as a passive residual heat removal system in a small modular reactor, which functions to reach and maintain the reactor coolant system in a safe shutdown state. However, shell-and-tube heat exchanger require larger space for heat transfer area. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the applicability of a welded type plate heat exchanger which is excellent in thermal efficiency and can be used at high temperature and high pressure. In this study, We investigated the environment in which the heat exchanger was used and materials that could withstand corrosive characteristic and high temperature and high pressure conditions.
Stuctural integrity of the heat transfer plate through finite element analysis is performed. Because it is very important to select finite element modeling and boundary conditions due to the complicated structure characteristics of the heat transfer plate, the feasibility of the shell element was confirmed by comparing the 2-layer solid element and the shell element of the heat transfer plate. In order to verify the effect of contact boundary conditions, 2-layer and 4-layer models were compared and compared with the full model to verify the validity of the 1/4 model. In addition, because of local yielding, elastic – plastic analysis was performed and the most suitable analytical modeling method was selected. The method of evaluating the analysis results was evaluated according to ASME Section VIII Division 2 and the analytical model was structurally safe for the given environmental conditions of the SMR.