Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the
1998 International RERTR Meeting

VALIDATION AND VERIFICATION OF THE MTR_PC
THERMOHYDRAULIC PACKAGE

Alicia Doval
Nuclear Engineering Department, INVAP S.E.
F.P. Moreno 1089, P.O. Box 961
(8400) Bariloche, Rio Negro, Argentina

e-mail: doval@invap.com.ar

ABSTRACT

The MTR_PC v2.6 is a computational package developed for research reactor design and calculation. It covers three of the main aspects of a research reactor: neutronic, shielding and thermohydraulic. In this work only the thermohydraulic package will be covered, dealing with verification and validation aspects. The package consists of the following steady state programs: CAUDVAP 2.60 for the hydraulic calculus, estimates the velocity distribution through different parallel channels connected to a common inlet and outlet common plenum. TERMIC 1H v3.0, used for the thermal design of research reactors, provides information about heat flux for a given maximum wall temperature, onset of nucleate boiling, redistribution phenomena and departure from nucleate boiling. CONVEC V3.0 allows natural convection calculations, giving information on heat fluxes for onset of nucleate boiling, pulsed boiling and burn-out phenomena as well as total coolant flow. Results have been validated against experimental values and verified against theoretical and computational programmes results, showing a good agreement.