Analysis of the UPTF Separate Effects Test 11 (Steam-Water Countercurrent Flow in the Broken Loop Hot Leg) Using RELAP5/MOD2 (NUREG/IA-0071, AEEW–M2555)
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Publication Information
Date Published: June 1992
Prepared by:
M. J. Dillistone
Winfrith Technology Centre
United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority
Dorchester, Dorset, DT2 8DH
United Kingdom
Prepared as part of:
The Agreement on Research Participation and Technical Exchange
under the International Thermal-Hydraulic Code Assessment
and Application Program (ICAP)
Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001
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Summary
RELAP5/MOD2 predictions of countercurrent flow limitation in the UPTF Hot Leg Separate Effects Test (test 11) are compared with the experimental data. The code underestimates, by a factor of more than three, the gas flow necessary to prevent liquid runback from the steam generator, and this is shown to be due to an oversimplified flow-regime map which does not allow the possibility of stratified flow in the hot leg riser. The predicted countercurrent flow is also shown to depend, wrongly, on the depth of liquid in the steam generator plenum.
The same lest is also modelled using a version of the code in which stratified flow in the riser is made possible. The gas flow needed to prevent liquid runback is then predicted quite well, but at all lower gas flows the code predicts that the flow is completely unrestricted - i.e. liquid flows between full flow and zero flow are not predicted. This is shown to happen because the code cannot calculate correctly the liquid level in the hot leg, mainly because of a numerical effect of upwind donoring in the momentum flux terms of the code's basic equations. It is also shown that the code cannot model the considerable effect of the ECCS injection pipe (which runs inside the hot leg) on the liquid level.
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