Pressurized thermal shock re-evaluation studies for Korean PWR plant

The PTS reference temperature of reactor pressure vessel for one of the Korean NPPs has been predicted to exceed the screening criteria before it reaches it's design life. To cope with this issue, a plant-specific PTS analysis had been performed in accordance with the Regulatory Guide 1.154 in 1999. As a result of that analysis, it was found that current methodology of RG. 1.154 was very conservative. The objective of this study is to examine the effects of changing various input parameters and to determine the amount of conservatism of the current PTS analysis method. To do this, based on the past PTS analysis experience, parametric study were performed for various models using modified VISA-II code. This paper discusses the analysis results and recommendations to reduce the conservatism of current analysis method