A Flooding Induced Station Blackout Analysis for a Pressurized Water Reactor Using the RISMC Toolkit

Abstract

In this paper we evaluate the impact of a power uprate on a pressurized water reactor (PWR) for a tsunami-induced flooding test case. This analysis is performed using the RISMC toolkit: the RELAP-7 and RAVEN codes. RELAP-7 is the new generation of system analysis codes that is responsible for simulating the thermal-hydraulic dynamics of PWR and boiling water reactor systems. RAVEN has two capabilities: to act as a controller of the RELAP-7 simulation (e.g., component/system activation) and to perform statistical analyses. In our case, the simulation of the flooding is performed by using an advanced smooth particle hydrodynamics code called NEUTRINO. The obtained results allow the user to investigate and quantify the impact of timing and sequencing of events on system safety. In addition, the impact of power uprate is determined in terms of both core damage probability and safety margins.