Comparison of the Results of Several Heat Transfer Computer Codes when Applied to a Hypothetical Nuclear Waste Repository

摘要

A direct comparison of transient thermal calculations was made with the heat transfer codes HEATING5, THAC-SIP-3D, ADINAT, SINDA, TRUMP, and TRANCO for a hypothetical nuclear waste repository. With the exception of TRUMP and SINDA (actually closer to the earlier CINDA3G version), the other codes agreed to within +-5% for the temperature rises as a function of time. The TRUMP results agreed within +-5% up to about 50 years, where the maximum temperature occurs, and then began an oscillary behavior with up to 25% deviations at longer times. This could have resulted from time steps that were too large or from some unknown system problems. The available version of the SINDA code was not compatible with the IBM compiler without using an alternative method for handling a variable thermal conductivity. The results were about 40% low, but a reasonable agreement was obtained by assuming a uniform thermal conductivity; however, a programming error was later discovered in the alternative method. Some work is required on the IBM version to make it compatible with the system and still use the recommended method of handling variable thermal conductivity. TRANCO can only be run as a 2-D model, and TRUMP and CINDA apparently required longer running times and did not agree in the 2-D case; therefore, only HEATING5, THAC-SIP-3D, and ADINAT were used for the 3-D model calculations. The codes agreed within +-5%; at distances of about 1 ft from the waste canister edge, temperature rises were also close to that predicted by the 3-D model. (ERA citation 05:005455)