Pressure drops: scaling, research prioritization and validation-consistency

Pressure drop is an important parameter in nuclear T-H (thermal-hydraulics) as well as in nuclear safety analysis. In this paper, a methodology has been proposed for assessing the impact of friction and acceleration pressure drop in reactors through the integration of the scope among Prioritization, V&V&C (Verification & Validation & Consistency), Scaling and Against Annapolis 1996 Specialists Meeting, This paper provides a preliminary analysis of the errors in pressure drop calculations in both single-phase and two-phase simulations with system T-H code of RELAP5 within consideration of V&V&C. The paper suggests considering pressure drop as a significant evaluation parameter in the scaling assessment framework, advocating for additional thermal-hydraulic experiments and model developments. Future research will involve further computational comparisons of benchmark pressure drop experiments and methodological studies on pressure drop assessment.