Outcomes from the EURATOM–ROSATOM ERCOSAM SAMARA projects on containment thermal-hydraulics for severe accident management

Highlights: • Hydrogen distribution in the containment of PWR was investigated for scenario leading to stratification. • The scenario was scaled from a generic PWR containment to four facilities. • Effect of spray, cooler and heat sources was investigated experimentally and with LP and CFD. • Code-to-code benchmarks aiming a scaling up the facilities to a large containment. - Abstract: ERCOSAM and SAMARA are the acronyms for two parallel projects co-financed respectively by EURATOM and ROSATOM during the period 2010–2014 with the general aim to advance the knowledge on the phenomenology associated with the hydrogen and steam spreading and stratification in the LWR containment during a postulated severe accident. The important peculiarity of the projects was in experimental and analytical investigating the impact of systems such as spray, cooler and heat sources (simulating thermal effect of PARs) on the distribution of gas mixture (e.g. hydrogen, steam, air). This paper presents the main outcomes of the ERCOSAM–SAMARA projects.