Development of multi-level simulation system for core thermal-hydraulics coupled with plant dynamics analysis; Prediction of transient temperature distribution in a subassembly under inter-subassembly heat transfer effect

Doda, Norihiro  ; Hamase, Erina ; Kikuchi, Norihiro  ; Tanaka, Masaaki  

In conventional design studies of sodium-cooled fast reactors, plant dynamics and local phenomena were evaluated separately by using simple models and detailed models, respectively, and their interaction was considered through the boundary conditions settings with conservativeness for each individual analysis. Thus, the final result through the analyses may contain excessive conservativeness. Therefore, JAEA began to develop a multi-level simulation system in which detailed analysis codes are coupled with a plant dynamics analysis code. Focusing on core thermal-hydraulics, a coupled analysis method using a plant dynamics analysis code Super-COPD and a subchannel analysis code ASFRE has been developed. The analysis on a test in the experimental fast reactor EBR-II was performed to validate the coupled analysis. Through the comparison of the analysis results and the measurement, it was confirmed that the coupled analysis could predict the transient temperature distribution in the subassembly, and the multi-level simulation by changing the level of detail in analysis model could be performed for core thermal-hydraulics.