Numerical simulation of boron injection in a BWR

The present study constitutes a first step to understand the process of boron injection, transport and mixing in a BWR. It consists of transient CFD simulations of boron injection in a model of the downcomer of Forsmark's Unit 3 containing about 6 million elements. The two cases studied are unintentional start of boron injection under normal operation and loss of offsite power with partial ATWS leaving 10% of the core power uncontrolled. The flow conditions of the second case are defined by means of an analysis with RELAP5, assuming boron injection start directly after the first ECCS injection. Recent publications show that meaningful conservative results may be obtained for boron or thermal mixing in PWRs with grids as coarse as that utilized here, provided that higher order discretization schemes are used to minimize numerical diffusion. The obtained results indicate an apparently strong influence of the scenario in the behavior of the injection process. The normal operation simulation shows that virtually all boron solution flows down to the Main Recirculation Pump inlet located directly below the boron inlet nozzle. The loss of offsite power simulation shows initially a spread of the boron solution over the entire sectional area of the lower part of the downcomer filled with colder water. This remaining effect of the ECCS injection lasts until all this water has left the downcomer. Above this region, the boron injection jet develops in a vertical streak, eventually resembling the injection of the normal operation scenario. Due to the initial spread, this boron injection will probably cause larger temporal and spatial concentration variations in the core. In both cases, these variations may cause reactivity transients and fuel damage due to local power escalation. To settle this issue, an analysis using an extended model containing the downcomer, the MRPs and the Lower Plenum will be carried out. Also, the simulation time will be extended to a scale of several minutes.