Investigation on RELAP5-3D^© capability to predict thermal stratification in liquid metal pool-type system and comparison with experimental data

Highlights: • Thermal-hydraulic transient analysis for a LBE pool-type facility. • Investigation of RELAP5-3D capability to reproduce the transition from forced to natural circulation in a HLM pool system. • Verification of RELAP5-3D capability to reproduce the main thermal-hydraulic phenomena in a large HLM pool. • Comparison between the computational results and the experimental data. - Abstract: A numerical activity, aimed to evaluate the capability of RELAP5-3D^© to reproduce the main thermal-hydraulic phenomena in an HLM pool-type facility, in different operative conditions, is presented. For this purpose, the experimental campaign performed in CIRCE-ICE test facility has been selected for the code assessment. Two experimental tests have been analyzed: TEST A consisting in a transition from no-power to a full power steady state conditions, and TEST I, consisting in a transition from gas-enhanced circulation to natural circulation, simulating a protected loss of heat sink plus a loss of flow accident. Three different pool modelling approaches are presented, consisting in a single vertical pipe, parallel pipes with cross junctions and multi-dimensional component. The comparison with experimental data has highlighted the need to divide the large pool in several sections to reproduce the natural convection, strictly correlated with the thermal stratification. The multi-dimensional component seems to be the best practice for the evaluation of this phenomenon even if the lack of specific correlation for heat transfer coefficient in quasi-stagnant conditions in large tanks is a limit for the accuracy of the results. In addition, the paper presents a detailed nodalization of the fuel pin bundle, highlighting quite good capabilities of RELAP5-3D as a subchannel analysis code.