Multi-scale coupled simulation of E-SCAPE at steady operation conditions

Amongst Generation IV reactor designs, liquid metal-cooled reactors boast high power density owing to the high thermal conductivity of metals. The thermo-hydraulic phenomena that occur in the reactor pool in different scenarios (steady operation, accidents, non-critical transients, etc.) are a topic of great interest in the research community. One such reactor concept is MYRRHA, a flexible fast-spectrum research reactor cooled by lead-bismuth eutectic (LBE) under design at SCK CEN. To support the design of MYRRHA and provide data that gives insight into such phenomena and for numerical code validation, a 1/6th scale model called European SCAled Pool Experiment (E-SCAPE) was developed. As part of the European project PASCAL, NRG PALLAS aims to perform multi-scale simulations of E-SCAPE subjected to asymmetric accident scenarios of Heat Exchanger and Single Pump Failure coupling the in-house System Thermal Hydraulic (STH) code SPECTRA to the commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code STAR-CCM+ via the in-house coupling tool yMUSCLE: MultiphYsics MUltiscale Simulation CoupLing Environment. In previous articles, the standalone as well as coupled models of E-SCAPE have been validated against a steady state isothermal scenario. In this article, the next step is taken by performing coupled calculations of the steady active operation at a mass flow rate of 93.2 kg/s and 80% power, i.e 73kW, that serves as the pre-accident state to the Heat Exchanger Failure scenario, and comparing to the standalone STH and experimental results. The calculations reveal stable solutions that are well in agreement with the standalone STH as well as the experimental results.