Analysis of Late Phase Severe Accident Phenomena in CANDU Plant

Abstract

The paper overviews the analytical studies performed at Politehnica University of Bucharest on the analysis of late phase severe accident phenomena in a Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) plant. The calculations start from a dry debris bed at the bottom of calandria vessel. Both SCDAPSIM/RELAP code and ansys-fluent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code are used. Parametric studies are performed in order to quantify the effect of several identified sources of uncertainty on calandria vessel failure: metallic fraction of zirconium inside the debris, containment pressure, timing of water depletion inside calandria vessel, steam circulation in calandria vessel above debris bed, debris temperature at moment of water depletion inside calandria vessel, calandria vault nodalization, and the gap heat transfer coefficient.