Comparisons of RELAP5-3D Analyses to Experimental Data from the Natural Convection Shutdown Heat Removal Test Facility
The Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) is an important passive safety system being incorporated into the overall safety strategy for high temperature advanced reactor concepts such as the High Temperature Gas- Cooled Reactors (HTGR). The Natural Convection Shutdown Heat Removal Test Facility (NSTF) at Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) reflects a 1/2-scale model of the primary features of one conceptual air-cooled RCCS design. The project conducts ex-vessel, passive heat removal experiments in support of Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy’s Advanced Reactor Technology (ART) program, while also generating data for code validation purposes. While experiments are being conducted at the NSTF to evaluate the feasibility of the passive RCCS, parallel modeling and simulation efforts are ongoing to support the design, fabrication, and operation of these natural convection systems. Both system-level and high fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses were performed to gain a complete understanding of the complex flow and heat transfer phenomena in natural convection systems. This paper provides a summary of the RELAP5-3D NSTF model development efforts and provides comparisons between simulation results and experimental data from the NSTF. Overall, the simulation results compared favorably to the experimental data, however, further analyses need to be conducted to investigate any identified differences.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- OSTI ID:
- 1349754
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 2016 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants, , San Francisco, CA (United States), 17-20 Apr 2016
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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