Preliminary verification of a transient analysis code TSACO for helium cooled system

This work mainly focuses on the verification process of the thermal-hydraulic and safety analysis code (TSACO) applied to the Chinese helium-cooled ceramic breeder test blanket module cooling system. The HE-FUSS facility, which is an integral test facility for helium cooling systems, has been chosen to assess the capability of the TSACO code. The steady state and transient behavior of two loss-of-flow accidents (LOFAs) were simulated by TSACO. The steady state temperature distributions of the two LOFA tests were well reproduced by TSACO. The transient results of mass flowrates and outlet temperatures predicted by TSACO at the compressor and test section compared well with the experimental data. The good agreement between the calculated results and experimental data verifies the capability of the TSACO code to simulate helium cooling systems. In addition, an uncertainty analysis was conducted for the test section outlet temperatures of LOFA30 and LOFA50. The power, inlet temperature, mass flowrate, physical material properties, and heat transfer models were chosen as the input uncertainty parameters. The results show that the experimental data are easily covered by the uncertainty bands calculated by TSACO during transient analysis. This demonstrates the accuracy and fidelity of the TSACO code. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.