Nuclear Engineering and Technology (Apr 2016)

Application of Best Estimate Approach for Modelling of QUENCH-03 and QUENCH-06 Experiments

  • Tadas Kaliatka,
  • Algirdas Kaliatka,
  • Virginijus Vileiniskis

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.net.2015.12.011
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 48, no. 2
pp. 419 – 433

Abstract

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One of the important severe accident management measures in the Light Water Reactors is water injection to the reactor core. The related phenomena are investigated by performing experiments and computer simulations. One of the most widely known is the QUENCH test-program. A number of analyses on QUENCH tests have also been performed by different computer codes for code validation and improvements. Unfortunately, any deterministic computer simulation is not free from the uncertainties. To receive the realistic calculation results, the best estimate computer codes should be used for the calculation with combination of uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of calculation results. In this article, the QUENCH-03 and QUENCH-06 experiments are modelled using ASTEC and RELAP/SCDAPSIM codes. For the uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, SUSA3.5 and SUNSET tools were used. The article demonstrates that applying the best estimate approach, it is possible to develop basic QUENCH input deck and to develop the two sets of input parameters, covering maximal and minimal ranges of uncertainties. These allow simulating different (but with the same nature) tests, receiving calculation results with the evaluated range of uncertainties.

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