RELAP5/mod3.3 Analysis of Natural Circulation Cooldown with One Inactive Loop for Nuclear Power Plant Krško (NEK)

The paper presents the RELAP5/mod3.3 analysis of natural circulation cooldown with one inactive loop for Nuclear Power Plant Krško (NEK). The aim of the analysis is to determine the limiting cooldown rates during operator recovery actions to minimize the effect of flow stagnation in inactive loop. Since this is typical asymmetrical transient, the RELAP5/mod3.3 NEK model with split reactor vessel model was developed (models of the reactor vessel and core were axially divided in two parts) and used for this analysis. The several transients of cooldown, with one inactive loop, for different time after shutdown (different decay heat) were performed. The extreme conservative assumptions were applied for the analyses, i.e. the complete loss of feedwater (FW) and auxiliary feedwater (AF), including turbine driven (TD) AF pump, and the cooldown has started after the SG is completely dry (inactive). The analyses show that the cooldown rate shall be significantly reduced, and, based on the results the procedure ES-0.2 “Natural Circulation Cooldown” was modified.