Mechanistic modelling of station blackout accidents for a generic 900 MW CANDU plant using the modified RELAP/SCDAPSIM/MOD3.6 code

Highlights: • Application of mechanistic core deformation models for CANDU severe accident predictions. • Sensitivity of event trajectory and timing to operator actions. • Sensitivity to model parameters. • Hydrogen and fission product release characteristics. - Abstract: CANDU (CANada Deuterium Uranium) reactors have many unique design features that play important roles during a severe accident, however analysis of such features using Light Water Reactor (LWR) specific computer codes is challenging. Severe accidents in CANDU involve complex thermo-mechanical deformation phenomena which differ from the phenomena present during LWR accidents. For example, during complete station blackout scenarios with a failure of all emergency measures, the pressure tubes may balloon or sag into contact with the surrounding calandria tubes (CTs) establishing a thermal conduction pathway for heat rejection to the large moderator water volume. As the moderator liquid evaporates or boils its level decreases until fuel channels become uncovered in the calandria vessel. The uncovered channels heat up quickly and the entire fuel channel assembly (fuel, pressure tube and calandria tube) will sag and possibly disassemble. During the disassembly process some channel components may fall to the bottom of the calandria while others may form a suspended debris bed supported by channels which are still submerged in moderator liquid. These phenomena impact event-timing, accident progression, hydrogen production and fission product release. In this work several mechanistic channel deformation models have been developed and integrated into RELAP/SCDAPSIM/MOD3.6 to provide a coupled treatment of the deformation phase for such postulated accidents. MOD3.6 is a new version of the RELAP/SCDAPSIM code being developed to support the analysis of Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) under severe accident conditions. In this paper, the code system is used to simulate a postulated station blackout accident for a generic 900 MW CANDU plant. To reduce the uncertainty in the modeling of core disassembly and to overcome the memory constraints of the code, the simulation is broken into two phases with the first phase (i.e., from initiating event to the channel failure and depressurization) simulated using a full-plant RELAP5 model providing relatively high spatial fidelity of the entire heat transport system, and the second phase (i.e. continued from the end of the first phase until calandria vessel dryout) using alternative nodalization focusing on the calandria vessel and fuel channel components. The paper assesses the entire accident progression up to the point of calandria vessel dryout and performs sensitivity analysis on model parameters to assess their relative importance.