Development of the space code for nuclear power plants

Abstract

The Korean nuclear industry is developing a thermal-hydraulic analysis code for safety analysis of pressurized water reactors (PWRs). The new code is called the Safety and Performance Analysis Code for Nuclear Power Plants (SPACE). The SPACE code adopts advanced physical modeling of two-phase flows, mainly two-fluid three-field models which comprise gas, continuous liquid, and droplet fields and has the capability to simulate 3D effects by the use of structured and/or nonstructured meshes. The programming language for the SPACE code is C++ for object-oriented code architecture. The SPACE code will replace outdated vendor supplied codes and will be used for the safety analysis of operating PWRs and the design of advanced reactors. This paper describes the overall features of the SPACE code and shows the code assessment results for several conceptual and separate effect test problems.