Modeling the water flow in a horizontal bend of 90° for the development of core catcher simulation in reactor by using the Moving Particle Semi-Implicit method

Severe accidents in nuclear reactor have warned the nuclear scientists to put more attention about reactor safety. To decrease the risk when the reactor melts down, it is proposed a core catcher system. The behavior of the liquid is one of the essential information that must be provided, especially inside the channels of core catcher. Dynamics of water passing through a 90° horizontal bend of 90° is examined in the context of core catcher as a part of nuclear reactor. In this study, the dynamics is simulated using Moving Particle Semi-Implicit method. The simulation results are then compared to the experiments. The simulation results show that the water depth patterns obtained in this study are similar to experiment results. In addition, the travel time of water agrees with the experimental results. This shows the capability of Moving Particle Semi-Implicit method as an alternative numerical method for liquid transport. For further investigation, the chosen number of particles is sufficient for the purpose of predicting how fast the water front will reach each position along the channel.