• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.9
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• pp.1955-1962
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• 2020

In a sudden shutdown of primary pump or coolant loss accident in a marine nuclear power plant, the primary flow decreases rapidly in a transition process from forced circulation (FC) to natural circulation (NC), and the lower flow enters the steam generator (SG) causing reverse flow in the U-tube. This can significantly compromise the safety of nuclear power plants. Based on the marine natural circulation steam generator (NCSG), an experimental loop is constructed to study the characteristics of reverse flow under middle-temperature and middle-pressure conditions. The transition from FC to NC is simulated experimentally, and the characteristics of SG reverse flow are studied. On this basis, the experimental loop is numerically modeled using RELAP5/MOD3.3 code for system analysis, and the accuracy of the model is verified according to the experimental data. The influence of the flow variation rate on the reverse flow phenomenon and flow distribution is investigated. The experimental and numerical results show that in comparison with the case of adjusting the mass flow discontinuously, the number of reverse flow tubes increases significantly during the transition from FC to NC, and the reverse flow has a more severe impact on the operating characteristics of the SG. With the increase of flow variation rate, the reverse flow is less likely to occur. The mass flow in the reverse flow U-tubes increases at first and then decreases. When the system is approximately stable, the reverse flow is slightly lower than obverse flow in the same U-tube, while the flow in the obverse flow U-tube increases.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.41-53
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• 1994

A SGTR accident postulated at Kori unit 1 is simulated with Mihama unit experience, which occurred on February 1991, to evaluate the capability of plant to cope with the transient. The system design and plant conditions of Kori Unit 1 are much similar with those of Mihama Unit 2. Therefore, special concern has been given to evaluate the sequence and the resulting consequence of the postulated SGTR accident at the Kori unit 1 An analysis is peformed as realistically as possible, with following the EOP of Kori unit 1. The result indicates that the leak through tube break terminates within about forty minutes, and the Kori unit 1 may be sufficient to cope with SGTR accident with same type of sequence. However, the reconsideration may be required for the design of Kori unit 1 which disconnects non-safety AC power from off-site power on SI signal generation. It may be pointed out that the content of EOP for SGTR accident is not enough to require operator's proper judgements. An analysis of SGTR accident tested in the LSTF which simulated the SGTR accident at the Mihama Unit 2 is peformed using the RELAP5/MOD3. The results indicates that the code yields in general good agreement with the test, except the break flowrate at the early stage of the event.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.627-636
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• 2007

The present work is aimed at further discussing the effectiveness of dimensionless parameters recently proposed for the analysis of flow stability in heated channels with supercritical fluids. In this purpose, after presenting the main motivations for the introduction of these parameters in place of previously proposed ones, additional information on the theoretical bases and on the consequences of this development is provided. Stability maps, generated by an in-house program adapted from a previous application to boiling channels, are also shown for different combinations of the operating parameters. The maps are obtained as contour plots of an amplification parameter obtained from numerical discretization and subsequent linearization of governing equations; as such, they provide a quantitatively clear perspective of the effect of different boundary conditions on the stability of heated channels with supercritical fluids. In order to assess the validity of the assumptions at the basis of the in-house model, supporting calculations have been performed making use of the RELAP5/MOD3.3 computer code, detecting the values of the dimensionless parameters at the threshold for the occurrence of instability for a heated channel representative of SCWR proposed core configurations. The obtained results show reasonable agreement with the maps, supporting the applicability of the proposed scaling parameters for describing the dynamic behaviour of heated channels with supercritical fluids.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.112-127
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• 1998

The present study is to assess the applicability of the best-estimate thermal-hydraulic codes, RELAP5/MOD3.2 and CATHARE2V1.3U, to the analysis of thermal-hydraulic behavior in PWRs during midloop operation following the loss of RHRS. The codes simulate an integral test, BETHSY 6.94, which was conducted in the large scale test facility of BETHSY in France. The test represents the accident where the loss of RHRS occurs during midloop operation with the pressurizer and upper head vents open and the sight level indicator broken. Besides, the hot legs are half filled with water and the upper parts of the primary cooling system are filled with nitrogen, with a letdown line open and only one SG available. The purposes of this study are to understand the physical phenomena associated with reflux cooling in the 5G U-tubes when noncondensable gas is present under low pressure and to assess the applicability of the codes to simulate the loss of RHRS event by comparing the predictions with the test results. The results of the study may contribute to actual applications for plant safety evaluation and description of the emergency operating procedure.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.977-986
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• 2019

In the thermal-hydraulic system codes, such as MARS and RELAP5/MOD3, the Savannah River Laboratory (SRL) model has been adopted as a subcooled boiling model. It, however, has been shown that the SRL model cannot take into account appropriately the effects of inlet liquid velocity and hydraulic diameter on axial void fraction development. To overcome the problems, Ha et al. (2018) proposed a modified SRL model, which is applicable to low-pressure and low-Pe conditions (P < 9.83 bar and $Pe{\leq}70,000$) only. In this work, the authors extended the modified SRL model by proposing a new net vapor generation (NVG) model and a wall evaporation model so that the new subcooled boiling model can cover a wide range of thermal-hydraulic conditions with pressures ranging from 1.1 to 69 bar, heat fluxes of $97-1186kW/m^2$, Pe of 3600 to 329,000, and hydraulic diameters of 5-25.5 mm. The new model was implemented in the MARS code and has been assessed using various subcooled boiling experimental data. The results of the new model showed better agreements with measured void fraction data, especially at low-pressure conditions.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.68-79
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• 1999

The YGN Units 3&4 plant conditions during shutdown operation were reviewed to identify the possible event scenarios following the loss of shutdown cooling (SDC) event. For the five cases of typical reactor coolant system (RCS) configurations under the worst event sequence, such as unavailable secondary cooling and no RCS inventory makeup, the thermal hydraulic analyses were performed using the RELAP5/MOD3.2 code to investigate the plant behavior following the event. The thermal hydraulic analyses include the estimation of time to boil, time to core uncovery, and time to core heat up to determine the containment closure time to prevent the uncontrolled release of fission products to atmosphere. The result indicates that the containment closure is recommended to be achieved within 42 minutes after the loss of SDC for the steam generator (SG) inlet plenum manway open case or the large cold leg open case under the worst event sequence. The containment closure time is significantly dependent on the elevation and size of the opening and the SG secondary water level condition. It is also found that the containment closure needs to be initiated before the boiling time to ensure the survivability of the workers in the containment. These results will provide useful information to operators to cope with the loss of SDC event.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.690-703
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• 2010

Sampling based uncertainty analysis was carried out to quantify uncertainty in predictions of best estimate code RELAP5/MOD3.2 for a thermal hydraulic test (10% hot leg break LOCA) performed in the Large Scale Test Facility (LSTF) as a part of an IAEA coordinated research project. The nodalisation of the test facility was qualified for both steady state and transient level by systematically applying the procedures led by uncertainty methodology based on accuracy extrapolation (UMAE); uncertainty analysis was carried out using the Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method to evaluate uncertainty for ten input parameters. Sixteen output parameters were selected for uncertainty evaluation and uncertainty band between $5^{th}$ and $95^{th}$ percentile of the output parameters were evaluated. It was observed that the uncertainty band for the primary pressure during two phase blowdown is larger than that of the remaining period. Similarly, a larger uncertainty band is observed relating to accumulator injection flow during reflood phase. Importance analysis was also carried out and standard rank regression coefficients were computed to quantify the effect of each individual input parameter on output parameters. It was observed that the break discharge coefficient is the most important uncertain parameter relating to the prediction of all the primary side parameters and that the steam generator (SG) relief pressure setting is the most important parameter in predicting the SG secondary pressure.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.64-72
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• 2014

This study aimed at assessing the analysis capability of thermal-hydraulic computer code, MARS for the behaviors of the core make-up tank (CMT). The sensitivity study on the nodalization to simulate the CMT was conducted, and the MARS calculations were compared with KAIST experimental data and RELAP5/MOD3.3 calculations. The 12-node model was fixed through a nodalization study to investigate the effect of the number of nodes in the CMT (2-, 4-, 8-, 12-, 16-node). The sensitivity studies on various parameters, such as water subcooling of the CMT, steam pressure, and natural circulation flow were done. MARS calculations were reasonable in the injection time and the effects of several parameters on the CMT behaviors even though the mesh-dependency should be properly treated for reactor applications.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.561-586
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• 2012

This paper describes a summary of final prediction results by system-scale safety analysis codes during the OECD/NEA/CSNI ISP-50 exercise, targeting a 50% Direct Vessel Injection (DVI) line break integral effect test performed with the Advanced Thermal-Hydraulic Test Loop for Accident Simulation (ATLAS). This ISP-50 exercise has been performed in two consecutive phases: "blind" and "open" phases. Quantitative comparisons were performed using the Fast Fourier Transform Based Method (FFTBM) to compare the overall accuracy of the collected calculations. Great user effects resulting from the combination of the possible reasons were found in the blind phase, confirming that user effect is still one of the major issues in connection with the system thermal-hydraulic code application. Open calculations showed better prediction accuracy than the blind calculations in terms of average amplitude (AA) value. A total of nineteen organizations from eleven countries participated in this ISP-50 program and eight leading thermal-hydraulic system analysis codes were used: APROS, ATHLET, CATHARE, KORSAR, MARS-KS, RELAP5/MOD3.3, TECH-M-97, and TRACE.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.1-15
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• 2020

Nuclear power plants in South Korea are operated to cover the baseload demand. Hence they are operated at 100% rated power and do not deploy power tracking control except for startup, shutdown, or during transients. However, as the contribution of renewable energy in the energy mix increases, load follow operation may be needed to cover the imbalance between consumption and production due to the intermittent nature of electricity produced from the conversion of wind or solar energy. Load follow operation may be quite challenging since the operators need to control the axial power distribution and core reactivity while simultaneously conducting the power maneuvering. In this paper, a systems engineering approach for multi-physics load follow simulation of APR1400 is performed. RELAP5/SCDAPSIM/MOD3.4/3DKIN multi-physics package is selected to simulate the Korean Advanced Power Reactor, APR1400, under load follow operation to reflect the impact of feedback signals on the system safety parameters. Furthermore, the systems engineering approach is adopted to identify the requirements, functions, and physical architecture to provide a set of verification and validation activities that guide this project development by linking each requirement to a validation or verification test with predefined success criteria.