Evaluation of CFD Capability for Simulation of Energetic Flow in Light Water Reactor Containment (original) (raw)

HANNA, BOTROS NASEIF. Evaluation of CFD Capability for Simulation of Energetic Flow in Light Water Reactor Containment. (Under the direction of Dr. Igor A. Bolotnov and Dr. Nam T. Dinh.) This study is concerned with analysis of Direct Containment Heating (DCH), which is a known threat to the integrity of containment in Light Water Reactor plants during beyond design basis accident. DCH occurs in scenarios with high-pressure melt ejection (HPME) from the reactor vessel lower head to the containment. Molten corium release is followed by highly energetic steam flow, which causes melt dispersal and rapid heat up of the containment atmosphere. The present work investigates the capabilities of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach for simulating high pressure steam blowdown. Evaluation Model Development and Assessment Process (EMDAP) is used to guide the investigation. Validation studies are conducted for selected flow patterns identified as important for the blowdown modeling. A ...