AREVA main steam line break fully coupled methodology based on CATHARE-ARTEMIS - 15496

The CATHARE code developed since 1979 by AREVA, CEA, EDF and IRSN is one of the major thermal-hydraulic system codes worldwide. In order to have at disposal realistic methodologies based on CATHARE for the whole transient and accident analysis in Chapter 15 of Safety Reports, a coupling with the code ARTEMIS was developed. ARTEMIS is the core code in AREVA's new reactor simulator system ARCADIA, using COBRA-FLX to model the thermal-hydraulics in the core. The Fully Coupled Methodology was adapted to the CATHARE-ARTEMIS coupling to perform Main Steam Line Break studies. This methodology, originally applied to the MANTA-SMART-FLICA coupling, is dedicated to Main Steam Line Break transients at zero power. The aim of this paper is to present the coupling between CATHARE and ARTEMIS and the application of the Fully Coupled Methodology in a different code environment. (authors)