Calculation of the VVER-1000 coolant transient benchmark using the coupled code systems DYN3D/RELAP5 and DYN3D/ATHLET

Plant-measured data provided by the OECD/NEA VVER-1000 coolant transient benchmark programme were used to validate the DYN3D/RELAP5 and DYN3D/ATHLET coupled code systems. Phase 1 of the benchmark (V1000CT-1) refers to an experiment that was conducted during the commissioning of the Kozloduy NPP Unit 6 in Bulgaria. In this experiment, the fourth main coolant pump was switched on whilst the remaining three were running normal operating conditions. The experiment was conducted at 27.5% of the nominal level of the reactor power. The transient is characterized by a rapid increase in the primary coolant flow through the core, and as a consequence, a decrease of the space-dependent core inlet temperature. The control rods were kept in their original positions during the entire transient. The coupled simulations performed on both DYN3D/RELAP5 and DYN3D/ATHLET were based on the same reactor model, including identical main coolant pump characteristics, boundary conditions, benchmark-specified nuclear data library and nearly identical nodalization schemes. In addition to validation of the coupled code systems against measured data, a code-to-code comparison between simulation results has also been performed to evaluate the respective thermal hydraulic models of the system codes RELAP5 and ATHLET.