Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis of the In-Vessel Hydrogen Generation for Gen-III PWR and Phebus FPT-1 with MELCOR 2.2

Piotr Darnowski, Piotr Mazgaj and Mateusz Włostowski
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Piotr Darnowski: Institute of Heat Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, Nowowiejska 21/25, 00-665 Warsaw, Poland
Piotr Mazgaj: Institute of Heat Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, Nowowiejska 21/25, 00-665 Warsaw, Poland
Mateusz Włostowski: Institute of Heat Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, Nowowiejska 21/25, 00-665 Warsaw, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 16, 1-28

Abstract: In this study, uncertainty and sensitivity analyses were performed with MELCOR 2.2.18 to study the hydrogen generation (figure-of-merit (FoM)) during the in-vessel phase of a severe accident in a light water reactor. The focus of this work was laid on a large generation-III pressurized water reactor (PWR) and a double-ended hot leg (HL) large break loss of coolant accident (LB-LOCA) without a safety injection (SI). The FPT-1 Phebus integral experiment emulating LOCA was studied, where the experiment outcomes were applied for the plant scale modelling. The best estimate calculations were supplemented with an uncertainty analysis (UA) based on 400 input-decks and Latin hypercube sampling (LHS). Additionally, the sensitivity analysis (SA) utilizing the linear regression and linear and rank correlation coefficients was performed. The study was prepared with a new open-source MELCOR sensitivity and uncertainty tool (MelSUA), which was supplemented with this work. The FPT-1 best-estimate model results were within the 10% experimental uncertainty band for the final FoM. It was shown that the hydrogen generation uncertainties in PWR were similar to the FPT-1, with the 95% percentile being covered inside a ~50% band and the 50% percentile inside a ~25% band around the FoM median. Two different power profiles for PWR were compared, indicating its impact on the uncertainty but also on the sensitivity results. Despite a similar setup, different uncertainty parameters impacted FoM, showing the difference between scales but also a significant impact of boundary conditions on the sensitivity analysis.

Keywords: Phebus; FPT-1; MELCOR; LB-LOCA; severe accident; hydrogen; PWR reactor; sensitivity analysis; uncertainty analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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