Simulation of containment cooling with outside spray after a core meltdown

• Published in: Nuclear engineering and design Vol. 69; no. 1; pp. 127 - 137
• Main Authors: Covelli, B., Varadi, G., Nielsen, L., Lewis, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.01.1982
• ISSN: 0029-5493; 1872-759X
• DOI: 10.1016/0029-5493(82)90286-2

In the most severe hypothetical loss of coolant accident, the reactor core melts and falls into the containment sump, there evaporating much of the sump water and raising the pressure within the containment building. One possible method to remove the decay heat is to cool the steel containment shell with an outside spray system. To perform the structural analysis needed to confirm the integrity of the containment, the thermal profile in the containment wall must first be found. The purpose of this work is to develop a computer code to calculate this transient profile. Other aspects such as hydrogen build-up are not considered in this code. The method uses relationships for the natural convection-partial condensation phenomena occurring at the containment internal surfaces, iteratively coupled to a one-dimensional heat balance at the wall to solve for the wall temperature as a function of angular position. A differential calculation as a function of time treats the thermodynamic changes within the containment as quasi-steady state. The result is a quick-running code capable of analyzing the temperature transient for several hours following the LOCA with a few minutes of computing time.