Generic Containment: A Detailed Comparison of Containment Simulations Performed on Plant Scale

One outcome of the OECD/NEA ISP-47 (TOSQAN, MISTRA, THAI) activity was the recommendation to elaborate a 'Generic Containment' in order to allow to compare and rate the results obtained by different lumped-parameter models on plant scale. Within the European Network of Excellence SARNET2, such a Generic Containment nodalisation, based on a German PWR (1300 MWel), was defined. This agreement on the nodalisation allows investigating the remaining differences among the results, especially the ‘user-effect’, related to the modeling choices, as well as fundamental differences in the underlying model basis in detail. The methodology applied in order to compare the different code predictions consisted of a series of three benchmark steps with increasing complexity as well as a systematic comparison of characteristic variables and observations. This paper summarizes the benchmark series, the lessons learned during specifying the steps, comparing and discussing the results and finally gives an outlook on future steps.