Determination of Mixing Factors for VVER-440 Fuel Assembly Head

Abstract

CFD models have been developed for the heads of the old, the present and new type VVER-440 fuel assemblies using the experiences of former validation process. With these models, temperature distributions were investigated in typical assemblies and in-core thermocouple signals were calculated. The analyses show that coolant mixing is intensive but not-perfect in the assembly heads. Difference between the thermocouple signal and cross-sectional average temperature at measurement level depends on the assembly type. Using the models, weight factors of the rod bundle regions for the in-core thermocouple have been determined. With these factors, the thermocouple signals were estimated and results were statistically tested using the registered data of the Hungarian nuclear power plant. This test shows that deviations between measured and calculated temperatures can be significantly decreased and consequently monitoring uncertainties can be reduced with using the weight factors.