CODE COUPLING DEVELOPMENT FOR NUCLEAR SAFETY STUDIES

摘要

EDF is developing a new modeling method to obtain a better representation of the nuclear core, within the international effort made for Pressurized Water Reactor modeling. The simulation of this vital component needs to reproduce different types of physical phenomena such as :1. neutronic phenomena which govern power generation in fuel rods,2. 3D thermalhydraulic phenomena which model two-phase flows in fuel rod assemblies,3. and 1D thermalhydraulic phenomena which transport fluid properties to all parts of the primary and secondary circuits of the Nuclear Power Plant and provide the core with boundary conditions during the transient.As there are interactions between these fields of physics, the coupling of specialized computer codes gives a better representation of physical phenomena in the core. EDF-DER has developed a new tool to make code coupling easy and widely applicable. CALCIUM provides a new solution for the THYC-COCCINELLE-CATHARE coupling which aims for a coupled modeling of the 3D thermalhydraulics inside the nuclear core (THYC, for ThermalHYdraulics in Cores), 3D neutronics (COCCINELLE) and practically 1D accidental thermalhydraulics in primary and secondary circuits (CATHARE). This industrial code coupling enables EDF to predict nonsymetrical accidents such as Steam Line Break Accidents using a 3D modeling of the nuclear core.