CATHENA Simulation of a Critical Inlet Header Break Test with Emergency Coolant Injection in RD-14

Abstract

Current safety analyses for many postulated loss-of-coolant accidents (LOCA) in the CANDU reactor must consider the effectiveness of the emergency coolant injection (ECI) system. A number of large-break tests at an inlet header, with ECI, have been per- formed in the RD-14 thermalhydraulics test facility at the Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment. CATHENA, an advanced two-fluid thermalhydraulics code, was used to predict these experiments. This paper describes the RD-14 test series and compares the CATHENA calculation of one of the tests, representing a critical break condition, to the experimental results.