Platform independence study of RELAP/SCDAPSIM/MOD3.4 versions bi7 and bik on two AMD and two Intel processors by simulation of a BWR SBO severe accident

Abstract

In this paper, four different processors, two from the AMD family and two from the Intel family, were used in the simulation of a BWR SBO severe accident to determine if the platform independence requirement is satisfied by the versions bi7 and bik of the best estimate code RELAP/SCDAPSIM MOD3.4 (RSS34). The results showed that the initial transient did not depend on the platform employed in this study, or on the RSS34 version used. Also, RSS is platform independent for practical BWR safety analysis applications, up to the point where the maximum temperature in reactor core reaches 2830 K, although the chemical oxidation reactions occurred at different rates, so different amounts of hydrogen mass were generated. For the severe accident period, the results from the codes SCDAP and COUPLE do depend on code version and processor type. The combination Intel/RSS34bik yields the more consistent results.