Assessing the accuracy of energy turbulent diffusion dispersion correlation in a porous two-fluid model dedicated to PWR core simulations

Abstract : CATHARE is a 2-fluid thermal-hydraulic code, capable of simulating thermal and mechanical phenomena occurring in the primary and secondary circuits of Pressurized Water Reactor under a wide variety of accidental situations. One of the medium-term objectives of system code CATHARE-3 is modeling a PWR core at assembly scale to simulate various accidental situations such as the loss of coolant accident (LOCA) and steam line break accident. This requires the monophasic and two-phase models that adapted to the assembly scale. However, there exists 3D models for the whole core and sub-channel scale models, which have a certain degree of validation. For more macroscopic three-dimensional models, we only have global validations without local measurements, which is necessary for the validations of each closure law's separate effects. The objective of my PhD project is improving the sub-channel scale models and developing the assembly scale models in CATHARE-3 system code with the sub-channel scale simulations and experiments results.