Assessment of CATHEA for Simulating Two-Phase Water Hammer

Abstract

A preliminary study has been undertaken to assess the ability of CATHENA to simulate two-phase water hammer. Models were assembled to simulate a void- collapse initiated water hammer experiment and a condensation-induced water hammer experiment. The results of this investigation show good agreement between the CATHENA simulations and the experimental data. The time to first pressure excursion, and the peak pressure and initial slope of the first pressure excursion were all well predicted. The decay of subsequent pressure excursions and their frequency were adequately predicted for the condensation-induced experiment, but did not match as well with the void-collapse initiated experiment. Improvements are expected with further development of the code, and potential areas for improvement are outlined.