The development of thermal stratification in the pressure suppression pool of a BWR is a safety issue since it reduces its cooling capability and leads to higher containment pressures than in completely mixed conditions. In this work, we propose a model to simulate the pool behavior during a steam injection through spargers. The model provides the time averaged heat and momentum transferred from the steam condensation to the large scale pool circulation. Small scale phenomena such as direct contact condensation is not resolved, only its effect on the pool behaviour. The model was implemented in Fluent 16.2 and validated against experimental data obtained in PANDA facility at PSI (Switzerland). The scaling of the experiments, done to preserve the most important physical phenomena occurring in plant scale is also presented in the paper. The results show that the model is able to predict well the global pool behavior. However, flow instabilities were observed to induce a sudden mixing of the upper part of the stratified layer during the transition from the stratification to the mixing phases. This led to a faster erosion of the layer than in the experiment. Simulations done with 2D and 3D meshes and scale adaptive turbulence models were performed to clarify this issue and are presented in the paper.
QC 20161025