Steady state thermal hydraulic calculations for MTR plate-type research reactors

Abstract

Abstract A computation code THERMOHYD has been developed to perform the steady state thermal-hydraulic calculations of the MTR type research reactors fueled with plate-type-fuel, in the ranges of pressures and temperatures typical for MTR reactors. The code calculates the coolant and clad surface temperatures along the cooling channel, as well as the critical heat flux and provides values for the critical phenomena parameters (RDR, ONBR and DNBR ratios) for reactor cores. The code takes into account the variation of the physical properties of the coolant with temperature. It also accounts for the uncertainties due to fuel fabrication tolerances, possible deviations in the operational measurements, the errors in the experimental correlations used in the analysis, and the errors due to simplifications made in the calculations which have been considered in the analysis. The THERMOHYD code was tested against the well known PARET code and proved to be accurate and more conservative in some aspects.