Development of a Coupled TRACE/PARCS Model for KKL and Benchmark Against the Turbine Trip Test (NUREG/IA-0469)

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Publication Information

Manuscript Completed: June 2016
Date Published: April 2017

Prepared by:
P. Papadopoulos, A. Sekhri

Kernkraftwerk Leibstadt AG
CH-5325 Leibstadt, Switzerland

K. Tien, NRC Project Manager

Division of Systems Analysis
Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001

Prepared as part of:
The Agreement on Research Participation and Technical Exchange
Under the Thermal-Hydraulic Code Applications and Maintenance Program (CAMP)

Published by:
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Washington, DC 20555-0001

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Abstract

The Nuclear Power Plant of Leibstadt (KKL) is a participating member of the Code Applications and Maintenance Program (CAMP) of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) to validate the TRACE code for BWR/6 transient analysis. The application of TRACE for the safety assessment of BWRs requires a throughout verification and validation using experimental data from tests but also plant data for the modelling. The purpose of this work is the review of the KKL TRACE/PARCS model, the benchmark of the model against plant data recorded during a turbine trip test and an investigation of the core lumping effect on the turbine trip test.

A coupled TRACE/PARCS model has been developed to analyze fast transients in KKL. The first benchmark against a turbine trip test has shown differences between the test data and the results predicted by TRACE/PARCS such as the total core power and the dome pressure. This is mainly due to unstable steady-state conditions during the initialization process and modelling issues. The improvements introduced in this work to the TRACE model are including but not limited to the geometry of the reactor internals, the redesign of the main steam lines and the implementation of a rudimentary control system. Furthermore, the PARCS input model has been updated with the turbine trip test corresponding cross sections. The new designed coupled TRACE/PARCS model was eventually benchmarked against the same turbine trip plant data.