The Code Application and Maintenance Program (CAMP)

The NRC hosts CAMP to assess and improve NRC thermal-hydraulic transient computer codes. It was begun as a follow-on to the International Code Assessment and Application Program (ICAP), which demonstrated practical technical benefits to the NRC by assessing the codes against a broad range of test data, developing better models to represent transient and accident reactor behavior more accurately, and improving code quality and code accuracy through identification of code errors and deficiencies. The benefits were retained as ICAP transitioned into CAMP in the early 1990s.

CAMP is made up of thermal-hydraulic analysts from member nations who come together to

• share experience with NRC thermal-hydraulic computer codes to identify code errors, perform code assessments, and identify areas for additional experiments, model development, and improvement,
• maintain and improve user expertise,
• develop and improve user application guidelines,
• develop a well-documented thermal-hydraulic code assessment database, and
• share experience in the use of the codes for resolution of safety and other technical issues (e.g., scalability and uncertainty).

CAMP and ICAP have produced more than 200 NUREG/IA publications that contributed to the development, assessment, and application of NRC thermal-hydraulic analysis codes. Technical areas span the entire range of accident and transient analysis including low pressure, low power transients, advanced reactor design applications, coupling between the primary system and containment, operation of passive core cooling systems during accidents, boron dilution transients, neutronics coupling, reflood, condensation with non-condensables, etc. The reports document the contributions made to assessment, plant analysis, and physical model development.

The NRC provides CAMP members with the following computer codes: RELAP5, TRACE, PARCS, and SNAP. The TRACE code is the NRC's primary thermal-hydraulic reactor system analysis code. RELAP5 is NRC’s legacy thermal-hydraulic code that still enjoys widespread use world-wide. It is maintained under CAMP at a bug-fix level along with user-submitted improvements. PARCS is a multidimensional reactor kinetics code that can be run stand-alone or coupled to TRACE and RELAP5. SNAP is a graphical user interface to most of NRC’s reactor safety codes. It provides pre-processing, runtime control, and postprocessing capabilities. These codes are being used to perform analyses of accidents and transients in operating reactors, analyses to support resolution of generic issues, evaluation of emergency procedures and accident management strategies, confirmation of licensee's analyses, testing of the fidelity of NRC simulators, training exercises for NRC staff, and supporting analyses for the certification of advanced reactor designs.

CAMP meetings are held twice each year, one in the U.S. and the other abroad.