Heat structure coupling of CUPID and MARS for the multi-scale simulation of the passive auxiliary feedwater system

For the analysis of transient two-phase flows in nuclear reactor components, a three-dimensional thermal hydraulics code, named CUPID, has been developed. In the present study, the CUPID code was coupled with a system analysis code MARS in order to apply it for the multi-scale thermal-hydraulic analysis of the passive auxiliary feedwater system (PAFS). The PAFS is one of the advanced safety features adopted in the Advanced Power Reactor Plus (APR+), which is intended to completely replace the conventional active auxiliary feedwater system. For verification of the coupling and validation of the coupled code, the PASCAL test facility was simulated, which was constructed with an aim of validating the cooling and operational performance of the PAFS. The two-phase flow phenomena of the steam supply system including the condensation inside the heat exchanger tube were calculated by MARS while the natural circulation and the boil-off in the large water pool that contains the heat exchanger tube were simulated by CUPID. This paper presents the description of the PASCAL facility, the coupling method and the simulation results using the coupled code.