A User's Guide to the PLTEMP/ANL Code

Technical Report · Tue Jul 07 00:00:00 EDT 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1234525· OSTI ID:1234525

Olson, Arne P. ^[1]; Kalimullah, M. ^[1]

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1. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

PLTEMP/ANL V4.2 is a FORTRAN program that obtains a steady-state flow and temperature solution for a nuclear reactor core, or for a single fuel assembly. It is based on an evolutionary sequence of ''PLTEMP'' codes in use at ANL for the past 20 years. Fueled and non-fueled regions are modeled. Each fuel assembly consists of one or more plates or tubes separated by coolant channels. The fuel plates may have one to five layers of different materials, each with heat generation. The width of a fuel plate may be divided into multiple longitudinal stripes, each with its own axial power shape. The temperature solution is effectively 2-dimensional. It begins with a one-dimensional solution across all coolant channels and fuel plates/tubes within a given fuel assembly, at the entrance to the assembly. The temperature solution is repeated for each axial node along the length of the fuel assembly. The geometry may be either slab or radial, corresponding to fuel assemblies made of a series of flat (or slightly curved) plates, or of nested tubes. A variety of thermal-hydraulic correlations are available with which to determine safety margins such as Onset-of- Nucleate boiling (ONB), departure from nucleate boiling (DNB), and onset of flow instability (FI). Coolant properties for either light or heavy water are obtained from FORTRAN functions rather than from tables. The code is intended for thermal-hydraulic analysis of research reactor performance in the sub-cooled boiling regime. Both turbulent and laminar flow regimes can be modeled. Options to calculate both forced flow and natural circulation are available. A general search capability is available (Appendix XII) to greatly reduce the reactor analyst’s time.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 1234525
• Report Number(s): ANL/RERTR/TM-11-22 Rev.1-Version 4.2; 121096; TRN: US1600226
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
P CODES
DEPARTURE NUCLEATE BOILING
FUEL PLATES
THERMAL HYDRAULICS
RESEARCH REACTORS
FUEL ASSEMBLIES
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS
NATURAL CONVECTION
FORTRAN
HEAVY WATER
TWO-DIMENSIONAL SYSTEMS
COOLANTS
TUBES
LAMINAR FLOW
GEOMETRY
PLATES
SAFETY MARGINS
STEADY-STATE CONDITIONS
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
CORRELATIONS
INSTABILITY
PERFORMANCE
SLABS
TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION
REACTOR CORES
FORCED CONVECTION
SUBCOOLED BOILING