Thermal hydraulic evaluation for an experimental facility to investigate pressurized thermal shock (PTS) in CDTN/CNEN

The goal of the work presented in this paper is to provide necessary thermal hydraulics information to the design of an experimental installation to investigate the Pressurized Thermal Shock (PTS) to be implemented at Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear (CDTN/CNEN). The envisaged installation has a test section that represents, in a small scale, a pressure vessel of a nuclear reactor. This test section will be heated and then exposed to a PTS in order to evaluate the appearance and development of cracks. To verify the behavior of the temperatures of the pressure vessel after a sudden flood through the annulus, calculations were made using the RELAP5/MOD 3.2.2 gamma code. Different outer radiuses were studied for the annular region. The results showed that the smaller annulus spacing (20 mm) anticipates the wetting of the surface and produces a higher cooling of the external surface, which stays completely wet for a longer time. (author)