Scheme of the PKL facility, Framatome GmbH.
The SESAR Thermal-hydraulics (SETH) Project began in 2001 and consisted of thermal-hydraulic experiments in support of accident management, which were carried out at facilities identified by the Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI) as those requiring international collaboration to sponsor their continued operation. (Note: SESAR is the acronym for the CSNI Senior Expert Group on Safety Research.)
The first phase of the project covered two aspects of accident management:
The second phase (SETH-2) started in 2007 with the aim of resolving key computational issues for the simulation of thermal-hydraulic conditions in reactor containments. SETH-2 made use of the Paul Scherrer Institute's (PSI) passive decay heat removal and depressurisation test (Passive Nachwaermeabfuhr und DruckAbbau Testanlage (PANDA)) facility and the Commissariat à l’énergie atomique's (CEA) Mitigation and Stratification (MISTRA) facility.
The aim of the project was to generate high quality experimental data to be used for improving the modelling and validation of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and lumped parameter (LP) computer codes designed to predict post-accident containment thermal-hydraulic conditions. The unique and complementary instrumentation used in the PANDA and MISTRA facilities and the different size and configuration of the two installations have contributed to address a variety of measured parameters, configurations and scale, thus enhancing the value of the data for code applications. Relevant containment phenomena and separate effects were studied in the programme, including the effects of jets, natural convection, the effect of containment coolers, the effect of sprays etc. The experimental data obtained not only support CFD and LP code validation for current operating reactors but also simulate conditions specific to advanced reactor designs.
The PANDA test series included:
The MISTRA test series included:
The scaling effects between the two facilities was studied in comparing LOWMA3, LOWMA4 and ST1-7 tests results
The tests were run between October 2007 and November 2010. A concluding seminar was held from 13-14 September 2011 at NEA headquarters.
SETH/PKL data package, SETH/PANDA data package and SETH-2 data package are available upon request to OECD NEA members.
Interaction of a light gas stratified layer with an air jet coming from below: large scale experiment and scaling issues – E. Studer, J. Brinster, I. Tkatschenko, G. Mignot, D. Paladino, M. Andreani – XCFD4NRS-3 (3rd Workshop on Experiments and Computer Fluid Dynamics for Nuclear Research and Safety), 14-16 September 2010, Washington, DC, USA, doi: doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2012.10.009.