Study on local hydrogen behaviors in a subcompartment of the NPP containment

Hydrogen control in the case of severe accidents has been required by nucle ar regulations to ensure the integrity of containment after TMI accidents. Up to now, many experiments have been conducted to estimate the distributio n of hydrogen during accidents in nuclear power plants. In this article, we proposed a computer code named HYCA3D developed to calculate the local hyd rogen distribution with three-dimensional time-dependent governing equation s, which can simulate the transport of multiple species. Also, local hydrog en behavior has been experimentally investigated in a cylindrical multi-sub compartment mixing chamber, measuring the local concentration in various co nditions. Hydrogen is simulated by helium in the experiments. The proposed code was verified with these experimental results, followed by pre-tests wi th EPRI/HEDL standard problems. The calculation results show good agreement with the experimental data. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights rese rved.