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Title: PHISICS/RELAP5-3D RESULTS FOR EXERCISES II-1 AND II-2 OF THE OECD/NEA MHTGR-350 BENCHMARK

Abstract

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Advanced Reactor Technologies (ART) High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR) Methods group currently leads the Modular High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (MHTGR) 350 benchmark. The benchmark consists of a set of lattice-depletion, steady-state, and transient problems that can be used by HTGR simulation groups to assess the performance of their code suites. The paper summarizes the results obtained for the first two transient exercises defined for Phase II of the benchmark. The Parallel and Highly Innovative Simulation for INL Code System (PHISICS), coupled with the INL system code RELAP5-3D, was used to generate the results for the Depressurized Conduction Cooldown (DCC) (exercise II-1a) and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown (PCC) (exercise II-2) transients. These exercises require the time-dependent simulation of coupled neutronics and thermal-hydraulics phenomena, and utilize the steady-state solution previously obtained for exercise I-3 of Phase I. This paper also includes a comparison of the benchmark results obtained with a traditional system code “ring” model against a more detailed “block” model that include kinetics feedback on an individual block level and thermal feedbacks on a triangular sub-mesh. The higher spatial fidelity that can be obtained by the block model is illustrated with comparisons of the maximum fuel temperatures, especially inmore » the case of natural convection conditions that dominate the DCC and PCC events. Differences up to 125 K (or 10%) were observed between the ring and block model predictions of the DCC transient, mostly due to the block model’s capability of tracking individual block decay powers and more detailed helium flow distributions. In general, the block model only required DCC and PCC calculation times twice as long as the ring models, and it therefore seems that the additional development and calculation time required for the block model could be worth the gain that can be obtained in the spatial resolution« less

Authors:
 [1]
  1. Idaho National Laboratory
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
OSTI Identifier:
1349205
Report Number(s):
INL/CON-16-38078
DOE Contract Number:  
AC07-05ID14517
Resource Type:
Conference
Resource Relation:
Conference: International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2016), San Francisco, CA, 4/17/2016 - 4/20/2016
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
Advanced Reactor Technologies; High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR); MHTGR-350; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Developm; Parallel and Highly Innovative Simulation for INL; RELAP5-3D

Citation Formats

Strydom, Gerhard. PHISICS/RELAP5-3D RESULTS FOR EXERCISES II-1 AND II-2 OF THE OECD/NEA MHTGR-350 BENCHMARK. United States: N. p., 2016. Web.
Strydom, Gerhard. PHISICS/RELAP5-3D RESULTS FOR EXERCISES II-1 AND II-2 OF THE OECD/NEA MHTGR-350 BENCHMARK. United States.
Strydom, Gerhard. 2016. "PHISICS/RELAP5-3D RESULTS FOR EXERCISES II-1 AND II-2 OF THE OECD/NEA MHTGR-350 BENCHMARK". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1349205.
@article{osti_1349205,
title = {PHISICS/RELAP5-3D RESULTS FOR EXERCISES II-1 AND II-2 OF THE OECD/NEA MHTGR-350 BENCHMARK},
author = {Strydom, Gerhard},
abstractNote = {The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Advanced Reactor Technologies (ART) High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR) Methods group currently leads the Modular High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (MHTGR) 350 benchmark. The benchmark consists of a set of lattice-depletion, steady-state, and transient problems that can be used by HTGR simulation groups to assess the performance of their code suites. The paper summarizes the results obtained for the first two transient exercises defined for Phase II of the benchmark. The Parallel and Highly Innovative Simulation for INL Code System (PHISICS), coupled with the INL system code RELAP5-3D, was used to generate the results for the Depressurized Conduction Cooldown (DCC) (exercise II-1a) and Pressurized Conduction Cooldown (PCC) (exercise II-2) transients. These exercises require the time-dependent simulation of coupled neutronics and thermal-hydraulics phenomena, and utilize the steady-state solution previously obtained for exercise I-3 of Phase I. This paper also includes a comparison of the benchmark results obtained with a traditional system code “ring” model against a more detailed “block” model that include kinetics feedback on an individual block level and thermal feedbacks on a triangular sub-mesh. The higher spatial fidelity that can be obtained by the block model is illustrated with comparisons of the maximum fuel temperatures, especially in the case of natural convection conditions that dominate the DCC and PCC events. Differences up to 125 K (or 10%) were observed between the ring and block model predictions of the DCC transient, mostly due to the block model’s capability of tracking individual block decay powers and more detailed helium flow distributions. In general, the block model only required DCC and PCC calculation times twice as long as the ring models, and it therefore seems that the additional development and calculation time required for the block model could be worth the gain that can be obtained in the spatial resolution},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1349205}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 2016},
month = {Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 2016}
}

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