Nuclear Engineering and Technology (Apr 2022)
Interfacing between MAAP and MACCS to perform radiological consequence analysis
Abstract
Interfacing the output of severe accident analysis with the input of radiological consequence analysis is an important and mandatory procedure at the beginning of Level 3 PSA. Such interfacing between the severe accident analysis code MELCOR and MACCS, one of the most commonly used consequence analysis codes, is relatively tractable since they share the same chemical groups, and the related interfacing software, MelMACCS, has already been developed. However, the linking between MAAP, another frequently used code for severe accident analyses, and MACCS has difficulties because MAAP employs a different chemical grouping method than MACCS historically did. More specifically, MAAP groups by chemical compound, while MACCS groups by chemical element. An appropriate interfacing method between MAAP and MACCS has therefore long been requested by users. This study suggests a way of extracting relevant information from MAAP results and providing proper source term information to MACCS by an appropriate treatment. Various parameters are covered in terms of magnitude and manner of release in this study, and special treatment is made for a bypass scenario. It is expected that the suggested approach will provide an important contribution as a guide to interface MAAP and MACCS when performing radiological consequence analyses.