• Energy Research
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Abstract Extensive technical literature exists aimed at establishing the requirements needed to qualify a Nuclear Power Plant model. Most of this literature is focused on qualifying a model for licensing uses. Less documentation is available nowadays on the requirements needed when an Integral Plant Model is used for supporting plant operation and control of an actual commercial facility, while fulfilling its goals of safety and competitiveness. For the last 15 years the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) has been working in this field along with Asociacion Nuclear Asco–Vandellos (ANAV), which is a utility that presently runs three operating PWRs. The paper develops an advanced qualification process (AQP) of plant models for operation support, introduces the concept of plant configuration and explains how this activity complements other usual validation tasks.

Abstract The “First Workshop on Analytical Activities related to the SETH-OECD project” was held in Barcelona at the UPC's Institute of Energy Technologies (INTE), from 2nd to 3rd September 2003. The workshop gave the participants an opportunity to present the main results of the calculations performed as pre- and post-test simulations of SETH experiments. Among all the post-tests that were both presented and discussed, PKL experiment E2.2 holds special interest as it has been widely studied. Test E2.2 examined the most conservative case in terms of the maximum size that condensate slugs can reach and how far boron concentration can drop on resumption of natural circulation following a cold-side SB-LOCA. The analyses were performed by different working groups belonging to different countries and different codes were used. This paper goes deeper into the comparison of results of the different authors. Its aim is to both show and compare the results obtained by different working groups in their simulation of the experiment and to analyse the main parameters involved in order to draw conclusions on improvements that can be made in the analytical approach to such tests. All the participants managed to successfully predict the overall thermal-hydraulic system behaviour. Vessel fill-up together with slug build-up by reflux-condensation are phenomena that were correctly predicted, while simulation of natural circulation restart and transport of low-borated water slugs still need some improvement.