Development of a SIMMER\RELAP5 coupling tool

The In-Box Loss Of Coolant (LOCA) postulated accident is considered a major concern for the safety connected with the development of EU-DEMO fusion reactor. Relating to the renewed interest in the Water-Cooled Lithium Led blanket concept, an innovative experimental campaign is under development at ENEA Brasimone laboratories aiming at investigating the consequences related to the In-Box LOCA applied to the WCLL breeding blanket. In this frame, a new coupling tool between the SIMMER-III (modified version to implement the PbLi/water chemical interaction) and the RELAP5/Mod3.3 codes (modified version to implement PbLi thermo-physical properties) has been developed together with its preliminary application to simple test cases with water as working fluid. The coupling procedure can be defined as a “two-way”, “non-overlapping”, “online” technique aiming at investigating multi-physics and multi-scales phenomena in support of the development of fusion reactor technologies.