Thermal-hydraulic core analysis of the VVER-1000 reactor using a porous media approach

In this study, a thermal-hydraulic analysis of the VVER-1000 reactor core is performed using a porous media approach. Based on this approach, each fuel assembly was modeled and was divided into a network of lumped regions, each of which was characterized by a volume average parameter. The conservation equations of mass, linear momentum and energy are derived and discretized using the finite volume method in a hexagonal coordinate system. The pressure, velocity and temperature fields are achieved using a numerical analysis of the above mentioned coupled equations. To validate the applied approach, the numerical analysis and COBRA EN code results were compared and showed good agreement.