Industrial-Scale Hydrogen Deflagration Simulations Using EUROPLEXUS code

S. Kudriakov (1) , E. Studer (1) , A. Beccantini (1) , A. Velikorodny (2)

1 CEA-DES (ex-DEN) - CEA-Direction des Energies (ex-Direction de l'Energie Nucléaire)
2 AUSY

During certain severe accident scenarios in a Nuclear Power Plant, hydrogen gas is released into the reactor building. In the case of ignition, various combustion regimes are possible depending on the local concentrations of hydrogen and steam, as well as pressure and temperature distributions. These regimes may include jet fires, slow or fast deflagrations and detonations. Therefore, in order to improve hydrogen risk management strategies one has to find means to estimate the severity of combustion processes involved in various regimes of flame propagation. In recent years, the use of CFD codes for combustion modelling at industrial scale becomes widely accepted. Due to difference in scales involved in flame propagation modelling in large geometries,validation of a CFD code becomes a necessary preliminary step in order to assure a high level of confidence. This paper describes a validation of the EUROPLEXUS code against several large and medium scale experimental data as well as a methodology for the code application for hydrogen deflagration simulation under typical containment conditions for nuclear safety.

Keywords: EUROPLEXUS CODE; CFD; hydrogen combustion

Domains: Nuclear Experiment [nucl-ex]; Nuclear Theory [nucl-th]

S. Kudriakov, E. Studer, A. Beccantini, A. Velikorodny. Industrial-Scale Hydrogen Deflagration Simulations Using EUROPLEXUS code. NUTHOS-11 - The 11th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics, Operation and Safety, Oct 2016, Gyeongju, South Korea. ⟨hal-02441922v2⟩