Abstract
Recently, the interest in the study of various types of transients involving changes in the boron concentration inside the reactor, has led to an increase in the interest of developing and studying new models and tools that allow a correct study of boron transport. Therefore, a significant variety of different boron transport models and spatial difference schemes are available in the thermal-hydraulic codes. According to this interest, in this work it will be compared the results obtained using the different boron transport models implemented in the NRC thermal-hydraulic code TRACE. To do this, a set of models has been created using the different options and configurations that could have influence in boron transport. These models allow us to reproduce a simple event of filling or emptying the boron concentration in a long pipe. Moreover, with the aim to compare the differences obtained when one-dimensional or three-dimensional components are chosen, it has modeled many different cases using only pipe components or a mix of pipe and vessel components. In addition, the influence of the void fraction in the boron transport has been studied and compared under close conditions to a BWR commercial model. A final collection of the different cases and boron transport models are compared between them and those corresponding to the analytical solution provided by the Burgers equation. From this comparison, important conclusions are drawn that will be the basis of modeling the boron transport in TRACE adequately.
Highlights
The importance of the accuracy in the simulation of boron transport in nuclear reactor lies on the fact that boron dilution have a great importance in order to manage the reactivity control, together to the movement of the control rods, in pressurized water reactors (PWR) and to maintain the core integrity during ATWS-kind severe accidents, in boiling water reactor (BWR) in which under certain circumstances a boron injection is required
The interest in developing suitable tools that allow the reproduction of various types of transients involving the variation of the boron concentration inside the reactor [1] has led to an increase of the studies of new models and numeric schemes and its accuracy
In the case of transients involving a dilution or an injection of boron it is crucial to be able to simulate the boron transport within each component of the model. Following this line of interest, the aim of this paper is to test the thermal-hydraulic code TRACE to simulate the boron transport with the different second order schemes that it has in the βeta version
Summary
The importance of the accuracy in the simulation of boron transport in nuclear reactor lies on the fact that boron dilution have a great importance in order to manage the reactivity control, together to the movement of the control rods, in pressurized water reactors (PWR) and to maintain the core integrity during ATWS-kind severe accidents, in boiling water reactor (BWR) in which under certain circumstances a boron injection is required. In the case of transients involving a dilution or an injection of boron it is crucial to be able to simulate the boron transport within each component of the model. Following this line of interest, the aim of this paper is to test the thermal-hydraulic code TRACE to simulate the boron transport with the different second order schemes that it has in the βeta version. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 is devoted to explain the basis of the different schemes implemented in TRACE and the Burgers equation.
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