Domenico Paladino

PANDA: A Multipurpose Integral Test Facility for LWR Safety Investigations

The PANDA facility is a large scale, multicompartmental thermal hydraulic facility suited for investigations related to the safety of current and advanced LWRs. The facility is multipurpose, and the applications cover integral containment response tests, component tests, primary system tests, and separate effect tests. Experimental investigations carried on in the PANDA facility have been embedded in international projects, most of which under the auspices of the EU and OECD and with the support of a large number of organizations (regulatory bodies, technical dupport organizations, national laboratories, electric utilities, industries) worldwide. The paper provides an overview of the research programs performed in the PANDA facility in relation to BWR containment systems and those planned for PWR containment systems.

Experimental investigation of natural-circulation flow behavior under low-power/low-pressure conditions in the large-scale PANDA facility

Abstract Twenty-five tests have been carried out in the large-scale thermal-hydraulic facility PANDA to investigate natural-circulation and stability behavior under low-pressure/low-power conditions, when void flashing might play an important role. This work, which extends the current experimental database to a large geometric scale, is of interest notably with regard to the start-up procedures in natural-circulation-cooled boiling water reactors. It should help the understanding of the physical phenomena that may cause flow instability in such conditions and can be used for validation of thermal-hydraulics system codes. The tests were performed at a constant power, balanced by a specific condenser heat removal capacity. The test matrix allowed the reactor pressure vessel power and pressure to be varied, as well as other parameters influencing the natural-circulation flow. The power spectra of flow oscillations showed in a few tests a major and unique resonance peak, and decay ratios between 0.5 and 0.9 have been found. The remainder of the tests showed an even more pronounced stable behavior. A classification of the tests is presented according to the circulation modes (from single-phase to two-phase flow) that could be assumed and particularly to the importance and the localization of the flashing phenomenon.

Break-Up of Gas Stratification in LWR Containment Induced by Negatively Buoyant Jets and Plumes

For the creation of an experimental database related to physical phenomena relevant for LWR containment safety, tests are performed in MISTRA (CEA, France) and PANDA (PSI, Switzerland) facilities in the frame of the OECD/SETH-2 project. The specific purpose of these tests is to obtain data suitable to improve and validate advanced Lumped Parameter (LP) codes as well as codes with 3D capabilities with respect to the prediction of post-accident containment thermal-hydraulic conditions. The experimental data is related to hydrogen transport within containment compartments. In particular, the effect of mass sources (the release of steam and hydrogen), heat sources (hydrogen-oxygen recombiner), and heat sinks (condensation of steam caused by containment coolers and sprays or “cold” wall) on the break-up/erosion of an initially gas stratified configuration characterized by a layer with a high hydrogen content. Helium is used to simulate hydrogen in the PANDA facility. This paper presents the result of a series of SETH-2 PANDA tests attributed to “vertical fluid release” (plumes or jets). Two large containment compartments (∼180 m3 ) connected by a bended pipe of ∼1 m diameter are used for these tests. For all the tests, a helium-steam mixture having a thickness of 2 m is created in the upper volume of one compartment while the remaining volume is filled with steam. During the tests, steam jets or plumes are created by injecting steam from a vertical pipe located at the center of the vessel 2 m below the helium-steam mixture. The jet or plume is initially positively buoyant and becomes negatively buoyant once it reaches the helium-steam layer. These transient tests show the degradation of the helium-steam layer for different jet Reynolds numbers. The initial Froude number at the injection pipe varied in the range of ∼3 to ∼9, while the estimated Froude number at the helium-steam mixture/steam interface varied from ∼0.70 to ∼2.Copyright

Experiments on Gas Mixing and Stratification Driven by Jets and Plumes in Large-Scale, Multi-Compartment Geometries

The present paper discusses experiments carried out to examine mixing of different gases (steam, air) and the evolution their distributions in large-scale, multi compartment geometry imitating nuclear reactor containment compartments. The flow and the mixing process in the experiments are driven by plumes and jets representing source structures with different momentum-to-buoyancy strength. The time evolution of the relevant parameters like gas concentrations, velocities and temperatures are followed using dedicated instrumentation. The data obtained is meant to be used for the validation and development of high-resolution, mainly CFD based, 3D computational tools for nuclear reactor containment safety analysis.Copyright

Large Scale Gas Stratification Erosion by a Vertical Helium-Air Jet

Containment conditions after certain postulated severe accident scenarios in nuclear power plants might result in the accumulation of hydrogen in the vessel dome. Inspired by these accident scenarios an experiment for the OECD/NEA benchmark exercise (2014) was carried out in the large scale PANDA facility at the Paul Scherrer Institut in Switzerland. The benchmark experiment was conducted at room temperature and under conditions characterized by an initially positively buoyant jet which becomes negatively buoyant while interacting with a helium layer. The experiment addresses (i) the initial conditions especially at the tube exit and (ii) the details of the entrainment of the helium stratification into the jet and the transport of the mixture towards the lower parts of the vessel. For the tube exit velocity mean and fluctuating quantities we find a reasonable agreement with pipe flow data, but a lack of agreement between past tube exit measurements and our results. It is shown that the axial velocity of the jet experiences a strong deceleration in the vicinity of the helium-rich layer and is finally stopped. Fluid accumulates in this zone and part of this fluid is flowing back in a narrow annular region around the upward flowing jet. Consequently, part of the annular flow is reentrained into the rising jet. During the layer erosion, the flow structure changes from a more downwards oriented annular type to a more horizontally oriented mushroom type of flow. It is found that locations for which we record considerable turbulent kinetic energy extends above the region where the velocity magnitude has decayed to almost zero, indicating that the jet deceleration and redirection introduces considerable turbulence in the helium stratification.

Robust thermal flow sensor for a containment test facility

A network of custom developed anemometers is described, employed to measure the flow profile in a 0.9 m diameter pipe. The sensor is suitable to the harsh environment inside the large scale containment test facility PANDA. It is designed to work at velocities from 0.04–0.3 m/s in gas mixtures of varying composition, where other methods fail.

Simulations of Basic Gas Mixing Tests With Condensation in the PANDA Facility Using the GOTHIC Code

In the framework of the OECD SETH project, a number of experiments related to safety issues in the containment of a nuclear reactor have been performed in the large-scale facility PANDA. The tests have been designed to provide an adequate database for basic assessment of CFD and advanced lumped parameter (LP) codes. The test geometry consists of two interconnected vessels (compartments) with fluid injected in one vessel. The gas distribution in the injection vessel and the distribution of gases and the propagation of the stratification in the adjacent vessel are measured. Four of these tests were performed with initial and boundary conditions that resulted in substantial condensation rates. Three of these experiments featured vertical injection (with production of a plume), and in one, the transient response due to a high-momentum horizontal injection (jet) was investigated. The injected fluid was either saturated steam or a superheated mixture of steam and helium, and the fluid initially present in the vessels was pure air. These experiments have been analysed with the advanced containment code GOTHIC, and the main results are presented here. In general, the results obtained with the code and the standard mesh were in good agreement with the data. Limitations in modeling local phenomena controlled by complex flow patterns (e.g. heat transfer in the region of an impinging jet) and the need for refined meshes to reproduce certain aspects of the transients (e.g. erosion of the interface between layers of different gas composition) were also identified.Copyright

Effect of Thermal Stratification on Full-Cone Spray Performance in Reactor Containment for a Scaled Scenario

The results of an experimental study on the nuclear reactor containment spray system are presented. Depending on the initial conditions, the spray nozzle configuration and flow rates, the spray may cause higher hydrogen concentration during depressurization due to steam condensation, or it may erode the hydrogen stratification by enhanced mixing. To investigate these phenomena, the tests are performed using a full-cone spray nozzle in PANDA facility at Paul Scherrer Institut, Switzerland. Temporal evolution and spatial distribution of the fluid temperature and the fluid concentrations are measured using thermocouples and mass spectrometers. Two tests are performed with initial vessel wall temperatures of 105°C and 135°C, which create condensing and non-condensing environments respectively. The different initial conditions lead to different density stratifications. The effect of these different density stratification on the flow patterns and mixing of gases in the vessels due to the action of the spray is revealed by these tests.© 2014 ASME

Large-Scale Containment Cooler Performance Experiments under Accident Conditions

Computational Fluid Dynamics codes are increasingly used to simulate containment conditions after various transient accident scenarios. This paper presents validation experiments, conducted in the frame of the OECD/SETH-2 project. These experiments address the combined effects of mass sources and heat sinks related to gas mixing and hydrogen transport within containment compartments. A wall jet interacts with an operating containment cooler located in the middle (M-configuration) and the top (T-configuration) of the containment vessel. The experiments are characterized by a 3-phase injection scenario. In Phase I, pure steam is injected, while in Phase II, a helium-steam mixture is injected. Finally, in Phase III, pure steam is injected again. Results for the M-configuration show helium stratification build up during Phase II. During Phase III, a positively buoyant plume emerging from the cooler housing becomes negatively buoyant once it reaches the helium-steam layer and continuously erodes the layer. For the M-configuration, a strong degradation of the cooler performance was observed during the injection of the helium/steam mixture (Phase II). For the T-configuration, we observe a mainly downwards acting cooler resulting in a combination of forced and natural convection flow patterns. The cooler performance degradation was much weaker compared with the M-configuration and a good mixing was ensured by the operation of the cooler.

Natural Circulation Characteristics at Low-Pressure Conditions through PANDA Experiments and ATHLET Simulations

Natural circulation characteristics at low pressure/low power have been studied by performing experimental investigations and numerical simulations. The PANDA large-scale facility was used to provide valuable, high quality data on natural circulation characteristics as a function of several parameters and for a wide range of operating conditions. The new experimental data allow for testing and improving the capabilities of the thermal-hydraulic computer codes to be used for treating natural circulation loops in a range with increased attention. This paper presents a synthesis of a part of the results obtained within the EU-Project NACUSP “natural circulation and stability performance of boiling water reactors.” It does so by using the experimental results produced in PANDA and by showing some examples of numerical simulations performed with the thermal-hydraulic code ATHLET.