Thermal-hydraulic insights during a main steam line break in a generic PWR KONVOI reactor with ATHLET 3.1A

Abstract

Abstract The present paper gathers the main insights obtained during the numerical simulation of a 10 % main steam line break (MSLB) in a generic German PWR KONVOI reactor with the thermal-hydraulic system code ATHLET 3.1A. The contents of this paper are focused first on the transient thermal-hydraulic calculation during affected steam generator (SG) 1 boil-off and subsequently on the multidimensional fluid mixing study of the overcooled water stream and the coolant in the reactor pressure vessel. With this aim, the boundary conditions from the test PKL G3.1, carried out at the PKL test facility in the framework of the OECD/PKL-II project, are implemented in the simulation over the plant nominal parameters from the KONVOI reactor. The thermal-hydraulic and fluid mixing results obtained in the simulations are qualitatively assessed against suitable experimental data from the PKL and ROCOM test facilities, showing a good agreement between simulation and test behaviour.