Error analysis of supercritical water correlations using ATHLET system code under DHT conditions

The thermal-hydraulic computer code ATHLET (Analysis of THermal-hydraulics of LEaks and Transients) is used for analysis of anticipated and abnormal plant transients, including safety analysis of Light Water Reactors (LWRs) and Russian Graphite-Moderated High Power Channel-type Reactors (RBMKs). The range of applicability of ATHLET has been extended to supercritical water by updating the fluid-and transport-properties packages, thus enabling the code to the used in analysis of SuperCritical Water-cooled Reactors (SCWRs). Several well-known heat-transfer correlations for supercritical fluids were added to the ATHLET code and a numerical model was created to represent an experimental test section. In this work, the error in the Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) calculation by the ATHLET model is studied along with the ability of the various correlations to predict different heat transfer regimes. (author)