RETRAN-3D analysis of the base case and the four extreme cases of the OECD/NRC Peach Bottom 2 Turbine Trip benchmark

This paper presents the results of RETRAN-3D calculations of the base case and the four extreme cases of phase 3 of the Peach Bottom 2 OECD/NRC Turbine Trip benchmark for coupled thermal-hydraulic and neutronic codes. The PSI-RETRAN-3D model gives good agreement with the measured data of the base case. In addition to the base case, the analysis of the extreme cases provides a further understanding of the reactor behaviour, which is the result of the dynamic coupling of the whole system, i.e., the interaction between the steam line and vessel flows, the pressure, the Doppler, void and control reactivity and power. For the extreme cases without scram the bank of safety relief valves is able to mitigate the effects of the turbine trip for short times. The 3-D nature of the core power distribution has been investigated by analysing the power density of the different thermal-hydraulic channels. In all cases prior to the reactor scram the course of the power is similar in all the channels with differences of the order of a few percent showing that, by and large, the core acts in a coherent manner. At the time of maximum power, the axial power distribution in the different channels is increased at the core centre with respect to the distribution at time zero, by an amount, which is different for the different channels.