Thermal-hydraulic analysis of light water reactors under different steady-state operating conditions, Part 2: Pressurized water reactor

Abstract

The 1-D computer code MITH was used in this paper to perform sub-channel thermal-hydraulic analyses of a typical (Westinghouse model) pressurized water reactor. Two typical channels, hot and average, with the same flow rate and pressure drop, were tested under steady-state operating conditions. In this analysis, the channel with the highest temperature is designated as the hot channel. For the calculations, the channel model was divided into 20 parts. The thermal-hydraulic performance of the tested reactor was affected by power distribution, power level, and coolant mass-flow rate. Temperature distribution profiles of the fuel element and coolant are obtained for the average and hottest channels. A critical heat flux qncr analysis is also carried out and the heat fluxes in both channels were calculated. The W-3 correlation is employed to examine qncr in the hottest channel. Some data from the pressurized water reactor typical data sheet were used as input data, while others were used to validate the code. The code faithfully reproduced the Westinghouse model reactor results, including coolant, cladding, centerline, and surface fuel temperatures, quality and local heat flux qnloc, qncr and minimum departure from nucleate boiling ratio.