Study on local hydrogen behaviors in a subcompartment of the NPP containment Original Research Article

Hydrogen control in the case of severe accidents has been required by nuclear regulations to ensure the integrity of containment after TMI accidents. Up to now, many experiments have been conducted to estimate the distribution of hydrogen during accidents in nuclear power plants. In this article, we proposed a computer code named HYCA3D developed to calculate the local hydrogen distribution with three-dimensional time-dependent governing equations, which can simulate the transport of multiple species. Also, local hydrogen behavior has been experimentally investigated in a cylindrical multi-subcompartment mixing chamber, measuring the local concentration in various conditions. Hydrogen is simulated by helium in the experiments. The proposed code was verified with these experimental results, followed by pre-tests with EPRI/HEDL standard problems. The calculation results show good agreement with the experimental data.