Review of available data for validation of nuresim two-phase CFD software applied to CHF investigations

The NURESIM Integrated Project of the 6th European Framework Program was envisaged to initiate the development of the next-generation common European Standard Software Platform for simulating nuclear reactors. The overall objective of NURESIM Thermalhydraulic sub-project is to improve the understanding and the predictive capabilities of the simulation tools for key two-phase flow thermal-hydraulic processes such as the Critical Heat Flux (CHF). A multi-scale analysis of reactor thermalhydraulics is envisaged and two-phase CFD is developed to allow some zoom on local processes when the resolution of system codes is not sufficient.
Current industrial methods for CHF mainly use the sub-channel analysis and empirical CHF correlations based on large scale experiments having the real geometry of the reactor assembly. The NURESIM-TH activities regarding CHF aim at using two-phase CFD as a tool for understanding boiling flow processes, in order to subsequently help new fuel assembly design and to develop better CHF predictions in both PWR and BWR. A “Local Predictive Approach” may be envisaged for the long term where CHF empirical correlations would be based on local T/H parameters provided by CFD.
This paper presents a review of existing experimental data bases which can be used for validation of the two-phase CFD application to Critical Heat Flux (CHF) investigations with respect to nuclear reactors. The phenomenology of DNB and Dry-Out are detailed identifying all basic flow processes which require a specific modeling in CFD tool. The resulting program of work is given and the current state of the art of the modeling is presented.