Realistic Large Break Loss of Coolant Accident Mass and Energy Release and Containment Pressure and Temperature Analyses

To investigate the realistic behavior of mass and energy release and resultant containment response during large break Loss of Coolant accident (LOCA), analyses are performed for Yonggwang (YGN) 3&4 nuclear power plants by using a merged version of RELAP5/CONTEMPT4 computer code. Comparative analyses by using conservative design computer codes are also peformed. The break types analyzed are the double-ended guillotine breaks at the cold leg and hot leg. The design analysis resulted in containment peak pressure during post-blowdown phase for the cold leg break. However, the RELAP5/CONTEMPT4 analyses show that the containment pressure has a peak during blowdown phase, thereafter it decreases monotonously without the second port-blowdown peak. For the hot leg break, revised design analysis shows much lower pressure than that reported in YGN 3&4 final safety analysis report. The RELAP5/CONTEMPT4 analysis shoos similar trend and confirmed that the bypass flow through the broken loop steam generator during post-blowdown is negligibly small compared to that of cold leg break. The low pressure and temperature predicted tv realistic analysis presented in this paper suggest that the design analysis methodology contains substantial margin and it can be improved to provide benefit in investment protection, such as, relaxing plant technical specifications and reducing containment design pressure.