SPES: The Italian integral test facility for PWR safety research

The Italian National Energy Plan (December 1981) provides for the generation of 10,000 MWe nuclear power by a standard PWR. With reference to the national safety research in the LWR field, an activity, of considerable importance is the SPES integral facility. This construction was started in March 1983 and it will be accomplished within about 30 months. SPES permits a simulation of the Italian standard PWR system in those events that follow multiple failures and small breaks in the primary side. The SPES scaling criteria were defined according the preservation of the most important thermal-hydraulic phenomena occurring during a wide range of accidents; these criteria were applied to obtain a preliminary design of the facility