Benchmarking MELCOR 1.8.2 for ITER Against Recent EVITA Results
A version of MELCOR 1.8.2 modified for use in ITER Preliminary Safety Report analyses was validated against recent data from the EVITA facility located in Cadarache, France. EVITA Test Series 7 was used for this study to verify MELCOR’s ability to predict the pressures, temperatures, cryoplate ice mass, and vaccum vessel (VV) condensate mass for test conditions in EVITA that include injections of steam, nitrogen, and water in to the EVITA VV after the walls had been heated to 165 ºC and the cryoplate had been cooled to -193 ºC. In general, the ability of MELCOR to predict the VV pressure and wall temperatures for the steam only and water only injection tests was very good. Predicted ice layer masses where larger than reported for the EVITA cryoplate, in particular for the steam only injection tests (~40% too high), and the predicted condensate masses were less that measured in EVITA. Both of these descrpancies can be explained by ice porosity. The modified MELCOR 1.8.2 over predicts the EVITA VV pressure for the co-injection tests (e.g., steam plus nitrogen, or water plus nitrogen injections) by almost a factor of two. Based on parametric runs that where made by increasing the predicted cryoplate condensation rate, it is believed that this pressure over prediction is a result of an under predicted cryoplate condensation rate. The particulars of this study are documented in this report as well as conclusions about the impact this study has regarding the use of this verions of MELCOR for consequence analyses for ITER safety reports.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- DOE - SC
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-99ID-13727
- OSTI ID:
- 924495
- Report Number(s):
- INL/EXT-07-13521; TRN: US0802968
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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