Assessment of RELAP5/MOD3 With the LOFT L9–1/L3–3 Experiment Simulating an Anticipated Transient With Multiple Failures (NUREG/IA-0114)

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Publication Information

Date Published: February 1994

Prepared by:
Young Seok Bang, Kwang Won Seul, Hho Jung Kim

Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety
P. O. Box 16, Daeduk–Danji
Taejon, Korea

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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Abstract

The RELAP5/MOD3 5m5 code is assessed using the L9-1/L3-3 test carried out in the LOFT facility, a 1/60-scaled experimental reactor, simulating a loss of feedwater accident with multiple failures and the sequentially-induced small break loss-of-coolant accident. The code predictability is evaluated for the four separated sub-periods with respect to the system response; initial heatup phase, spray and power operated relief valve(PORV) cycling phase, blowdown phase and recovery phase. Based on the comparisons of the results from the calculation with the experiment data, it is shown that the overall thermal-hydraulic behavior important to the scenario such as a heat removal between the primary side and the secondary side and a system depressurization can be well-predicted and that the code could be applied to the full-scale nuclear power plant for an anticipated transient with multiple failures within a reasonable accuracy. The minor discrepancies between the prediction and the experiment are identified, in reactor scram time, post-scram behavior in the initial heatup phase, excessive heatup rate in the cycling phase, insufficient energy convected out the PORV under the hot leg stratified condition in the saturated blowdown phase and void distribution in secondary side in the recovery phase. This may come from the'code uncertainties in predicting the spray mass flow rate, the associated condensation in pressurizer and junction fluid density under stratified condition.