A multi-channel model thermal-hydraulic analysis code in real-time for plate type fuel reactor is developed in this paper. In this code, every fuel assembly in reactor is divided into a subchannel. A series of reasonable mathematical and physical model are set up based on the structure and operational characteristics of plate type fuel core. As for the choice of flow friction and heat transfer models, all possible flow regimes which include the laminar flow, transient flow and turbulent flow, and heat transfer regimes which include single liquid phase heat transfer, sub-cooled boiling, saturation boiling, film boiling and single vapor phase heat transfer, are considered. The correlations and constitutive equations used in the code are fit for the rectangular channel. Look-up table method is used to calculate the properties of water and steam. The code has been loaded on the real-time simulation supporting system SimExec. The reactivity insertion accident and loss of flow accident, which has been defined in the IAEA 10MW MTR benchmark program, were calculated by the code in this paper for validation. Furthermore, the steady state of CARR (China Advanced Research Reactor) is analyzed by this code. The detailed flow distribution in each fuel assembly is obtained. The temperature of coolant, quality, void fraction, DNBR in each subchannel is calculated. The results show that the recently developed code can be used for real time thermal hydraulic analysis of plate type fuel reactor.
Prediction of hydro-mechanical behaviour in a reactor core with a plate-type fuel assembly
