Development and Verification of the CATHENA GUI

Abstract

This paper presents the development and verification of a graphical user interface for CATHENA MOD-3.5d [1]. The thermalhydraulic computer code CATHENA has been developed to simulate the physical behaviour of the hydraulic components in nuclear reactors and experimental facilities. A representation of the facility is developed as an ASCII text file and used by CATHENA to perform the simulation. The existing method of manual generation of idealizations of a physical system for performing thermal hydraulic analysis is complex, time-consuming and prone to errors. An overview is presented of the CATHENA GUI and its depiction of a CATHENA idealization through the manipulation of a visual collection of objects. The methodologies and rigour involved in the verification of the CATHENA GUI will be discussed.