Investigation of the Reactor Cavity Cooling System Experimental Facility with RELAP5/SCDAPSIM System Code

Abstract

The Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS) is a passive safety system that is considered in the design of different advanced reactors. The RCCS operates during both normal and off-normal conditions as an important heat removal system. In this study, a RELAP5/SCDAPSIM system code model of the 1/23-scale water-cooled RCCS experimental facility at Texas A&M University has been generated and validated using experimental data from the facility under nominal conditions. The validated model was utilized to predict the thermal-hydraulic response of the RCCS under different operating conditions, including off-normal and accident scenarios. The comparison of the selected simulation results with the available experimental data confirmed the ability of the code to predict the behavior of the RCCS under the conditions analyzed.