CFD-Tool for Thermal-Hydraulics Pressurised Thermal Shock Analysis: Qualification of the Code_Saturne

Abstract

This paper explains the numerical program concerning the new thermalhydraulic Code_Saturne qualification for Safety Injection studies. Within the frame of the plant life time project, an analysis has shown that the most severe loading conditions are generated by a pressurised injection of cold water in the downcomer of a Reactor Pressure Vessel. For this kind of transients, a thermal hydraulics study has to be carried out in order to better adjust the accurate distribution of the fluid temperature in the downcomer. For that, the numerical tools have to be able to simulate the physical phenomena present during the Pressurised Thermal Shock. (PTS). For this qualification task, we have investigated one configuration related to an injection of cold water particularly in cold leg but also in a downcomer. One experiment test case has been studied and this paper gives a comparison between experiment and numerical results in terms of temperature field.

Evaluation of computational fluid dynamic methods for reactor safety analysis (ECORA)

“…Reference calculations performed by EDF with the finite-element code N3S are available for the same UPTF test (Martin and Bellet, 2001). Using the standard k-model turbulence model, important physical flow phenomena, like fluctuations of the cold-water plume when entering the downcomer, showed good agreement between numerical results and data.…”