Modelling a RD-14M LOCA Experiment with the TRACE Thermal-Hydraulics Code

Abstract

RD-14M Test B9401, simulating a critical break loss-of-coolant accident in a CANDU primary heat transport system, is of note for serving as benchmark data for an IAEA code validation exercise. It has thus been modeled with the TRACE code to study the code’s applicability towards modeling CANDU. TRACE reproduces the transient with fidelity comparable to other codes in the IAEA exercise, however predicts some phenomena with less accuracy than codes developed specifically for modeling CANDU-typical thermal-hydraulics. This was found to be due to limitations in TRACE’s ability to account for some horizontal stratification effects common in CANDU accident analysis.