Proving test on thermal-hydraulic design base reliability of BWR fuel assembly

Nuclear Power Engineering Test Center (NUPEC) completed critical power test by simulated full scale assemblies to prove thermal-hydraulic design base reliability of BWR fuel assembly. This report describes experimental apparatus, experimental data and evaluation results. The test assemblies used in this test simulate BWR fuel. Heat from fuel assembly is generated by electrical joule heating. The test apparatus is able to control system pressure, flow rate and heat generation of test assembly to realize the steady and transient phenomena as observed in BWR core. Steady and transient critical power, single and two phase pressure loss of assembly and void fraction at exit of test assembly were measured. In steady state critical power test, 592 data were obtained. These data were compared with the design correlation GEXL, several critical power correlations and with the results of subchannel analysis. Transient critical power test data were evaluated with transient analysis code (SCAT). All the data agreed well with the calculated results derived from the methods of BWR core thermal-hydraulic design base. (author)