Development and Benchmarking of Mechanistic Channel Deformation Models in RELAP/SCDAPSIM/MOD3.6 for CANDU Severe Accident Analysis

In different stages of postulated severe accidents in CANDU reactors, the fuel channels may experience a series of thermomechanical deformations, some of which may have significant impacts on accident progression; however, they have not been mechanistically modeled by integrated severe accident codes such as MAAP-CANDU and SCDAP/RELAP5. This paper focuses on the development and benchmarking of mechanistic models for pressure tube (PT) …