Dynamic Model Verification Studies for the Thermal Response of the Fort St. Vrain HTGR Core

摘要

The safety research program for high-temperature gas-cooled reactors at ORNL is directed primarily at addressing licensing questions on the Fort St. Vrain reactor near Denver, CO. An important part of the program is to make use of experimental data from the reactor to at least partially verify the dynamic simulations that are used to predict the effects of postulated accident sequences. Comparisons were made of predictions with data from four different reactor scram (trip) events from operating power levels between 30 and 50%. An optimization program was used to rationalize the differences between predictions and measurements, and, in general, excellent agreement can be obtained by adjustment of models and parameters within their uncertainty ranges. Although the optimized models are not necessarily unique, results of the study have identified areas in which some of the models were deficient. (ERA citation 05:017738)