An investigation of numerical performance enhancement of RELAP5: Numerical stability, higher resolution and an alternative constitutive relation

Highlights: • Numerical stability of RELAP5 is improved by additional differential terms. • Numerical accuracy of RELAP5 is enhanced by TVD flux-limiter scheme. • An alternative interphase friction relation is implemented for LOCA analysis. • Numerical examples and experiments prove the improvement measures. - Abstract: The nuclear reactor safety system code RELAP5 decomposes complex flow system of a nuclear reactor into a series of one-dimensional control volumes connected by flow junctions, and solves a set of two-phase two-fluid equations to predict the nuclear reactor system behavior. In spite of its extensive applications, there indeed exist many numerical shortcomings in RELAP5 and it is desirable to constantly improve its numerical performance. In the present work, the numerical performance improvement to RELAP5/MOD3 is carried out from the aspects of numerical stability, high-resolution and alternative constitutive relations. For the enhancement of numerical stability, the virtual mass term is replaced and an interfacial pressure term is added in the phase momentum equations of RELAP5 to make all the characteristic roots real, thus improve the model's hyperbolicity. In addition, the second-order Minmod TVD flux-limiter scheme replaces the original first-order upwind scheme for advection terms to reduce the numerical diffusion. Furthermore, an alternative interphase friction relation is substituted for the built-in model in RELAP5 to calculate the interphase drag for bubbly/slug flow in the vertical bundle channels. The performance improvement measures work reasonably well, as indicated by the simulation of selected numerical examples and the Bethsy 6.2TC integral effect experiment which corresponds to an intermediate break Pressurized Water Reactor Loss of Coolant Accident (PWR LOCA).