Development of containmentFOAM towards LW-SMR analyses

Abstract

The Horizon Euratom SASPAM-SA Project aims to explore the transferability of knowledge from large LWRs to water-cooled SMRs. More specifically, the project investigates the ability of different codes to simulate the driving phenomena of potential Severe Accident sequences for two different “generic” SMRs. The “Design II” represents a dry containment with several passive safety features —a Pressure Suppression System (PSS), among others— based on information available in the open literature. One of the codes being evaluated in the framework of SASPAM-SA is containmentFOAM, an open-source CFD package based on OpenFOAM developed by Forschungszentrum Jülich. Since containmentFOAM was initially conceived to simulate conventional PWRs, a number of upgrades are being implemented based on the assessment of the SA sequences simulated in SASPAM-SA to tailor the code to LW-SMRs' specific needs. In particular, the paper summarises the validation and a preliminary application of a multi-fidelity coupling of containmentFOAM (CFD) and Modelica (system code) to represent the main thermo-fluid dynamic processes of PSSs. The validation showed a quantitative and qualitative agreement with the experimental measurements of the PPOOLEX MIX experimental series. Additionally, the pressure-coupling showed robust numerical stability, also confirmed for the preliminary calculations at plant scale.