Experimental and Numerical Investigations of the Coolant Mixing in Pressurized Water Reactors

For the analysis of boron dilution transients and main steam line break scenarios the modelling
of the coolant mixing inside the reactor vessel is important. The reactivity insertion due to
overcooling or deboration depends strongly on the coolant temperature and boron concentrati-
on.

The coolant mixing in the downcomer and lower plenum depends significantly on the con-
struction of the reactor vessel and flow conditions are different in each reactor type. In the
German Konvoi type reactors a complicated flow picture with large vortexes was obtained
which is typical probably also for the European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR). The models
and assumptions for the coolant mixing description used in the coupled neutron kine-
tics/thermohydraulic system codes have to be validated on experimental data from the
Rossendorf coolant mixing model and detailed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calcula-
tions.

The requirements concerning quality of the experimental results need a non-pressurized test
facility operating with water (room temperature). The reactor vessel is made of Plexiglas? for
flow visualization and LDA measurements. It has to dispose of separately controllable main
coolant pumps in each loop. The measurement instrumentation has to be designed for the
necessary spartial and time resolution.

The three-dimensional flow distribution in the downcomer and the lower plenum of PWRs
was calculated with a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code (CFX-4).