Science and Technology of Nuclear Installations

Research Article

OECD/NRC PSBT Benchmark: Investigating the CATHARE2 Capability to Predict Void Fraction in PWR Fuel Bundle

Table 3

PSBT subchannel tests: list of reference and sensitivity calculations.


Test section	ID	Number of axial nodes	Pressure (1)	Mass flow (1)	Note

Steady-state subchannel	RUN1	100	Nominal	Nominal	Reference
	RUN2	100	Nominal	Minimum	—
	RUN3	100	Nominal	Maximum	—
	RUN4	100	Minimum	Maximum	—
	RUN5	100	Maximum	Nominal	—
	RUN6	38	Nominal	Nominal	—
	RUN7	16	Nominal	Nominal	Effect of pressure drop
	C3	100	Nominal	Nominal	CATHARE3 (2) (same results are RUN1)

Nominal: as specified in [5]. Minimum and maximum: according to the estimated accuracy of the measurement system.
CATHARE3 is the new two-phase thermal-hydraulics system code developed at CEA to expand the capabilities of CATHARE2 (e.g., three field model, and turbulence transport for a continuous field or interfacial area transport for a dispersed field). CATHARE3 was applied against the PSBT data using the standard 6-equation model of CATHARE2. Thus, the task was a verification and a nonregression activity. The results are not reported here for sake of simplicity.