Integrated aerosol and thermalhydraulics modelling for CANDU safety analysis

Analysis of postulated accidents in CANDU reactors that could result in severe fuel damage requires the ability to model the formation of aerosols containing fission product materials and the transport of these aerosols from the fuel, through containment, to any leak to the atmosphere. Best-estimate calculations require intimate coupling and simultaneous solution of all the equations describing the entire range of physical and chemical phenomena involved. The prototype CATHENA/PACE-3D has been developed for integrated calculation of thermalhydraulic and aerosol events in a CANDU reactor during postulated accidents. Examples demonstrate the ability of CATHENA/PACE-3D to produce realistic flow and circulation patterns and reasonable accuracy in solution of two simple fluid-flow test cases for which analytical solutions exist