• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.45 no.7
• /
• pp.871-894
• /
• 2013

KAERI (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) has been operating an integral effect test facility, the Advanced Thermal-Hydraulic Test Loop for Accident Simulation (ATLAS), for transient and accident simulations of advanced pressurized water reactors (PWRs). Using ATLAS, a high-quality integral effect test database has been established for major design basis accidents of the APR1400 plant. A Domestic Standard Problem (DSP) exercise using the ATLAS database was promoted to transfer the database to domestic nuclear industries and contribute to improving a safety analysis methodology for PWRs. This $2^{nd}$ ATLAS DSP (DSP-02) exercise aims at an effective utilization of an integral effect database obtained from ATLAS, the establishment of a cooperation framework among the domestic nuclear industry, a better understanding of the thermal hydraulic phenomena, and an investigation into the possible limitation of the existing best-estimate safety analysis codes. A small break loss of coolant accident with a 6-inch break at the cold leg was determined as a target scenario by considering its technical importance and by incorporating interests from participants. This DSP exercise was performed in an open calculation environment where the integral effect test data was open to participants prior to the code calculations. This paper includes major information of the DSP-02 exercise as well as comparison results between the calculations and the experimental data.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.33 no.5
• /
• pp.468-482
• /
• 2001

As a process of Direct Containment Heating (DCH) issue resolution for Korean Standard Nuclear Power Plants (KSNPs), a containment load/strength assessment with two different approaches, the probabilistic and the deterministic, was performed with all plant-specific and phenomena-specific data. In case of the probabilistic approach, the framework developed to support the Zion DCH study, Two-Cell Equilibrium (TCE) coupled with Latin Hypercubic Sampling (LHS), provided a very efficient tool to resolve DCH issue. In case of the deterministic approach, the evaluation methodology using the sophisticated mechanistic computer code, CONTAIN 2.0 was developed, based on findings from DCH-related experiments or analyses. For three bounding scenarios designated as Scenarios V, Va, and VI, the calculation results of TCE/LHS and CONTAIN 2.0 with the conservatism or typical estimation for uncertain parameters, showed that the containment failure resulted from DCH loads was not likely to occur. To verify that these two approaches might be conservative , the containment loads resulting from typical high-pressure accident scenarios (SBO and SBLOCA) for KSNPs were also predicted. The CONTAIN 2.0 calculations with boundary and initial conditions from the MAAP4 predictions, including the sensitivity calculations for DCH phenomenological parameters, have confirmed that the predicted containment pressure and temperature were much below those from these two approaches, and, therefore, DCH issue for KSNPS might be not a problem.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.36 no.2
• /
• pp.142-152
• /
• 2004

The liquid entrainment and vapor pull-through offtake model of RELAP5/MOD3 had been developed for SBLOCA (Small Break Loss of Coolant Accident). The RELAP5/MOD3 model for horizontal volumes accounts for the phase separation phenomena and computes the flux of mass and energy through a branch when stratified conditions occur in the horizontal pipe. In the case of CANDU reactor, this model should be used in the coolant flow of 95 feeders connected to the reactor header component under the horizontal stratification in header. The current RELAP5 model can treat the only 3 directions junctions; vertical upward, downward, and side oriented junctions, and thus improvements for the liquid entrainment and vapor pull-through model were needed for considering the exact angles. The RELAP5 off-take model was modified and generalized by considering the geometric effect of branching angles. Based on the previous experimental results, the critical height correlation was reconstructed by use of the branch line connection angle and validation analyses were also performed using SET. The new model can be applied to vertical upward, downward and angled branch, and the accuracy of the new correlations is more improved than that of RELAP5.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.13-19
• /
• 2008

In order to predict a remaining life of a plant, it is necessary to select the components that are critical to the plant life. The remaining life of those components shall be evaluated by considering the aging effect of materials used as well as numerous factors. However, when evaluating reliability of nuclear structural components, some problems are quite formidable because of lack of information such as operating history, material property change and uncertainty in damage models. Accordingly, if structural integrity and safety are evaluated by the deterministic fracture mechanics approach, it is expected that the results obtained are too conservative to perform a rational evaluation of plant life. The probabilistic fracture mechanics approaches are regarded as appropriate methods to rationally evaluate the plant life since they can consider various uncertainties such as sizes and shapes of cracks and degradation of material strength due to the aging effects. The objective of this study is to evaluate the structural integrity for a reactor pressure vessel under the small break loss of coolant accident by applying the deterministic and probabilistic fracture mechanics. The deterministic fracture mechanics analysis was performed using the three dimensional finite element model. The probabilistic integrity analysis was based on the Monte Carlo simulation. The selected random variables are the neutron fluence on the vessel inside surface, the content of copper, nickel, and phosphorus in the reactor pressure vessel material, and initial RTNDT.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.43 no.1
• /
• pp.25-44
• /
• 2011

KAERI has been operating an integral effect test facility, ATLAS (Advanced Thermal-Hydraulic Test Loop for Accident Simulation), for accident simulations of advanced PWRs. Regarding integral effect tests, a database for major design basis accidents has been accumulated and a Domestic Standard Problem (DSP) exercise using the ATLAS has been proposed and successfully performed. The ATLAS DSP aims at the effective utilization of an integral effect database obtained from the ATLAS, the establishment of a cooperative framework in the domestic nuclear industry, better understanding of thermal hydraulic phenomena, and an investigation of the potential limitations of the existing best-estimate safety analysis codes. For the first ATLAS DSP exercise (DSP-01), integral effect test data for a 100% DVI line break accident of the APR1400 was selected by considering its technical importance and by incorporating comments from participants. Twelve domestic organizations joined in this DSP-01 exercise. Finally, ten of these organizations submitted their calculation results. This ATLAS DSP-01 exercise progressed as an open calculation; the integral effect test data was delivered to the participants prior to the code calculations. The MARS-KS was favored by most participants but the RELAP5/MOD3.3 code was also used by a few participants. This paper presents all the information of the DSP-01 exercise as well as the comparison results between the calculations and the test data. Lessons learned from the first DSP-01 are presented and recommendations for code users as well as for developers are suggested.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.56 no.3
• /
• pp.1066-1080
• /
• 2024

SMART100 has a containment pressure and radioactivity suppression system (CPRSS) for passive containment cooling system (PCCS). This prevents overheating and over-pressurization of a containment through direct contact condensation in an in-containment refueling water storage tank (IRWST) and wall condensation in a CPRSS heat exchanger (CHX) in an emergency cool-down tank (ECT). The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) constructed scaled-down test facilities, SISTA1 and SISTA2, for the thermal-hydraulic validation of the SMART100 CPRSS. Three separate effect tests were performed using SISTA1 to confirm the heat removal characteristics of SMART100 CPRSS. When the low mass flux steam with or without non-condensable gas is released into an IRWST, the conditions for mitigation of the chugging phenomenon were identified, and the physical variables were quantified by the 3D reconstruction method. The local behavior of the non-condensable gas was measured after condensation inside heat exchanger using a traverse system. Stratification of non-condensable gas occurred in large tank of the natural circulation loop. SISTA2 was used to simulate a small break loss-of-coolant accident (SBLCOA) transient. Since the test apparatus was a metal tank, compensations of initial heat transfer to the material and effect of heat loss during long-term operation were important for simulating cooling performance of SMART100 CPRSS. The pressure of SMART100 CPRSS was maintained below the design limit for 3 days even under sufficiently conservative conditions of an SBLOCA transient.