Development of a thermal-hydraulic subchannel analysis code for motion conditions

Since the conventional subchannel analysis codes are designed for the land-based reactor core, a thermal-hydraulic subchannel analysis code was developed to evaluate thermal-hydraulic characteristics of the reactor core under motion conditions. The verification of the code was performed with experimental data and commercial codes. The ISPRA 16-rod tests were used to evaluate the steady-state prediction performance of the code, and the simulation results agree well with the test data. COBRA-EN code was applied to check the transient prediction performance of the code, and there is a good agreement between the predictions with both codes. An additional forces model for motion conditions was proposed in the code, and CFX-14.0 code was applied to verify the model. The results show that the code can be used in the thermal-hydraulic analysis of the reactor core under motion conditions. To illustrate the capabilities of the code, a fuel bundle under a complex motion condition was simulated, and the results are reasonable.