STH/CFD coupled calculations of postulated transients from mixed to natural circulation conditions in the NACIE-UP facility

In the present paper, coupled STH/CFD calculations are performed addressing two operating conditions in the frame of the NACIE-UP experimental campaign. In order to simulate mixed and natural circulation phenomena related to liquid metals thermal hydraulics, the RELAP5/Mod3.3 STH code and the CFD code ANSYS Fluent are adopted in an integrated manner. The combined use of STH and CFD codes aims to help the user overcoming the limits of the individual techniques and thus achieving a better predicting capability with respect to each stand-alone application. Measured values and calculated results are compared. In particular, the coupled application provides the best results in terms of predicted mass flow rate and comprehensiveness of information giving the possibility to analyse the local and cross-sectional distributions. Furthermore, as an additional beneficial aspect, CFD results can be used as a tuning tool for some of the STH code parameters. The aim of the present work is highlighting the advantages and drawbacks of the adopted techniques, also reporting the margins of error that may presently be expected from these applications. Though perfectly matching results were not obtained, coupled STH/CFD application report promising modelling capabilities and may be consequently considered as a sound candidate for addressing liquid metal thermal hydraulics in complex geometries and large systems.