Models describing the formation and transport of corrosion products in PWRs

Since high-temperature water containing chemical solutions circulating at very high speed is used to cool PWRs, transport of corrosion products is governed by chemical, physical, thermodynamic and hydrodynamic factors all at once. In addition, the reactor circuit is a loop - and virtually a close - system. Interactions and retroactions are bound to occur between species and mechanisms. The sum of these processes thus constitutes a system which tends towards a steady state. Accordingly, knowledge of each phenomenon will not always be sufficient to understand the overall behaviour of corrosion products inside a reactor. It is therefore necessary to describe them in relation to each other, and this can be done using computers. This is, in fact, the aim of the Pactole code presented here. (author)