Analysis of flow in rod bundles with velocity and temperature radial dissymmetry using CATHARE-3

Qinjun Fu (1, 2) , Dominique Bestion (1) , Philippe Fillion (1) , Yohan Davit (2) , Michel Quintard (2)

1 CEA - Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives
2 IMFT - Institut de mécanique des fluides de Toulouse

CATHARE is a 2-fluid thermal-hydraulic system code, capable of simulating phenomena occurring in the primary and secondary circuits of a PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) under a wide variety of accidental situations. The latest version CATHARE-3 uses a 3D modeling of a PWR core at the assembly scale to simulate various accidental situations such as the loss of coolant accident (LOCA) or the steam line break accident. This requires that the one-phase and two-phase mixing models are adapted to the assembly scale and that every closure law is validated in a separate way. The code models for the 3D turbulent diffusion and dispersion of momentum and energy have been validated at sub-channel scale against experimental data. In this work, the energy and momentum mixing models are validated at assembly scale with the PNNL and the Weiss tests experimental results, respectively.

Mots clés: Nuclear reactor; Porous media; 3D modeling in porous medium approach; PWR; Turbulent diffusion; Upscaling

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Qinjun Fu, Dominique Bestion, Philippe Fillion, Yohan Davit, Michel Quintard. Analysis of flow in rod bundles with velocity and temperature radial dissymmetry using CATHARE-3. ICAPP 2019 - International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants, May 2019, Juan-les-Pins, France. pp.1-8. ⟨hal-02380403⟩