Thermal-hydraulic analysis of a heavy-water reactor moderator tank using the CUPID Code

In this study, a preliminary analysis is performed for the CANDU moderator tank. The calculation results using the basic case input showed a unrealistic, thermal stratification in the upper region, which was caused by the lack of the momentum of the cooling water from the inlet nozzle. To increase the flow momentum from the inlet nozzle, the cross-section area of each inlet nozzle was reduced by half and, then, the calculation showed very realistic results. It is clear that the modeling of the inlet nozzle affects the calculation result significantly. Further studies are needed for a realistic and efficient simulation of the flow in the Calandria tank. When the core cooling system fails to remove the decay heat from the fuel channels during a loss of coolant accident (LOCA), the pressure tube (PT) could strain to contact its surrounding Calandria tube (CT), which leads to sustained CTs dry out, finally resulting in damages to nuclear fuel. This situation can occur when the degree of the subcooling of the moderator inside the Calandria vessel is insufficient. In this regard, to estimate the local subcooling of the moderator inside the Calandria vessel is very important. However, the local temperature is measured at the inlet and outlet of the vessel only. Therefore, we need to accurately predict the local temperature inside the Calandria vessel.In this study, the thermal-hydraulic analysis of the real-scale heavy-water reactor moderator is carried out using the CUPID code. The applicability of the CUPID code to the analysis of the flow in the Calandria vessel has been assessed in the previous studies