The combined thermohydraulics-neutronics code TRAB-SMABRE for 3D plant transient and accident analyses

TRAB-3D models the PWR and BWR reactor core using the two-group diffusion equations in homogenised fuel assembly geometry with a sophisticated nodal method. Thermohydraulics is described using four equation formulation. The stand-alone version of the code also describes thermohydraulics of the rest of the BWR circuit with one dimensional components. The SMABRE code models the thermohydraulics of light water reactors. The five equation formulation with the drift flux phase separation is modelling the two-phase behaviour. Conservation equations are solved for the phase mass, mixture momentum and phase energy. Additional equations are for the noncondensables in gas and boron in liquid. The TRAB-3D and SMABRE codes have been coupled earlier by using the parallel coupling principle, where in the core section the 3-dimensional TRAB core, and the parallel channel coarse SMABRE core are solved in parallel, but rest of the circulation system is solved with SMABRE. As a new development the internal coupling to meet new requirements for the PWR and BWR transient analyses is being realised. Both the circuit and core thermohydraulics are solved in SMABRE. The core thermohydraulics solution inside the core wide iterations is repeated to allow rapid power changes. These are the fast pressure changes, control rod ejection and ATWS. The numerical solution in SMABRE has been improved to allow full core simulation with separate flow channel for each fuel element of a BWR core. For the PWR plants the method is used as well by simulating the core by one-dimensional parallel channels. New development is needed for the open core calculation.