Condensation in the cold leg as results of ECC water injection during A LOCA: modeling and validation

During postulated LOCA events in pressurized water reactors, cold water is injected into cold legs by emergency core cooling system (ECCS). As the ECC water comes into contact with steam, the amount of condensation in the cold legs which results from mixing of the two phases is expected to have an effect on the thermal hydraulic behavior of the system. During boil off period and recovery period of a small break LOCA, the condensation in the cold leg is enhanced by the impingement of the ECC jet on the layer of liquid, when the flow in the cold leg is expected to be horizontal stratified. Consequently, the reactor coolant system (RCS) depressurization is accelerated, which in turn increases ECC flow rate and promotes accumulator injection. For a large break LOCA, the condensation process in the cold leg during refill period helps to reduce bypass flow at the top of downcomer, promoting ECC penetration. The condensation in the cold leg during reflood period is an important factor in determining the ECC bypass, the break flow rate, the downcomer and core water inventory, and the liquid subcooling in the downcomer, which in turn impacts the peak cladding temperature during reflood. A cold leg condensation model was considered for the new release of WCOBRA/TRAC-TF2 safety analysis code and presented in an authors' previous work. The model was further improved to better capture relevant data and a revised model was found to be in better agreement with such experimental data. The intent of this paper is to present the validation for the cold leg condensation model. The improved cold leg condensation model is assessed against various small break and large break LOCA separate effects tests such as COSI experiments, ROSA experiments and UPTF experiments. Those experiments cover a wide range of cold leg dimensions, system pressures, mass flow rates, and fluid properties. All the predicted condensation results match reasonably well with the experimental data. (author)