Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics (NTH) implies a universe of knowledge, which, among the other things, is not easy to summarize and can be described (correctly) from different viewpoints. Resulting pictures are not necessarily consistent among each other and may prevent an optimal planning of researches, definitely slowing down the progress in understanding. Current generation and forthcoming water-cooled nuclear reactors are at the center of the attention; however, a few statements in Conclusions deal with thermal hydraulics in ‘other’ types of reactors. Rather than suggesting way-outs in future investigations, an interpretation of the state of the art constitutes the target for the paper. Referring to the words in the title, we try to substantiate the following evaluations, obvious or well established: (a) modeling is imperfect; (b) validation is essential; (c) scaling is controversial; (d) uncertainty is a guru-type of matter; (e) applications need proper strategy and consideration of research outcomes, including connections with different technologies. The Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty (BEPU) approach embeds the topics above and fixes the links between NTH on the one side and the Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) and licensing on the other side.
Modeling, Validation, Scaling, Uncertainty and Application in Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics
D'Auria Francesco
Primo
Conceptualization
;
2022-01-01
Abstract
Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics (NTH) implies a universe of knowledge, which, among the other things, is not easy to summarize and can be described (correctly) from different viewpoints. Resulting pictures are not necessarily consistent among each other and may prevent an optimal planning of researches, definitely slowing down the progress in understanding. Current generation and forthcoming water-cooled nuclear reactors are at the center of the attention; however, a few statements in Conclusions deal with thermal hydraulics in ‘other’ types of reactors. Rather than suggesting way-outs in future investigations, an interpretation of the state of the art constitutes the target for the paper. Referring to the words in the title, we try to substantiate the following evaluations, obvious or well established: (a) modeling is imperfect; (b) validation is essential; (c) scaling is controversial; (d) uncertainty is a guru-type of matter; (e) applications need proper strategy and consideration of research outcomes, including connections with different technologies. The Best Estimate Plus Uncertainty (BEPU) approach embeds the topics above and fixes the links between NTH on the one side and the Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) and licensing on the other side.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
