Modeling of condensation in horizontal tubes Original Research Article

Condensation in horizontal tubes plays an important role for example in the determination of the operation mode of horizontal steam generators of VVER reactors or passive safety systems for the next generation of nuclear power plants. Two different approaches (HOTKON and KONWAR) for modeling this process have been undertaken by Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) and the University for Applied Sciences Zittau/Görlitz (HTWS) and implemented into the 1D-thermohydraulic code ATHLET, which is developed by Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) mbH for the analysis of anticipated and abnormal transients in light water reactors. Although the improvements of the condensation models are developed for different applications between generators and emergency (VVER steam generators-emergency condenser of the SWR1000) with very different operation conditions (e.g. the temperature difference over the tube wall in HORUS is up to 30 K and in NOKO up to 250 K, and the heat flux density in HORUS is up to 40 kW/m2 while that in NOKO is up to 1 GW/m2) both models are now compared and assessed by Forschungszentrum Rossendorf FZR e.V. Therefore post-test calculations of four selected HORUS experiments were performed with ATHLET/KONWAR. It can be seen that the calculations with the extension KONWAR as well as HOTKON significantly improve the agreement between computational and experimental data.