Computation of a BWR Turbine Trip with CATHARE-CRONOS2-FLICA4 Coupled Codes

The CEA/DEN modeling and computation results with the CATHARE, CRONOS2, and FLICA4 codes of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development boiling water reactor turbine trip benchmark are presented. The first exercise of the benchmark to model the whole reactor thermal hydraulics with specified power has been performed with the CATHARE system code. Exercise 2, devoted to core thermal-hydraulic neutronic analysis with provided boundary conditions and neutronic cross sections, has been carried out with the CRONOS2 and FLICA4 codes. Finally, exercise 3, combining system thermal hydraulics and core three-dimensional thermal-hydraulics-neutronics, was computed with the three coupled codes: CATHARE, CRONOS2, and FLICA4.

Our one-dimensional thermal-hydraulic reactor computation agrees well with the benchmark reference data and demonstrates the capacities of CATHARE to model a turbine trip transient. Coupled three-dimensional thermal-hydraulic and neutronic analysis displays a high sensitivity of the power peak to the core thermal-hydraulic model. The use of at least 100 channels is recommended to achieve reasonable results for integral and local parameters. Deviations between experimental data and exercise 3 results are discussed: timing of events, core pressure drop, and neutronic model. Finally, analysis of extreme scenarios as sensitivity studies on the transient to assess the effect of the scram, the bypass relief valve, and the steam relief valves is presented.