LAUSR

Abstract In this paper the dynamic thermal hydraulic fast reactor simulation code CHD is presented. The code is built around a scriptable object-oriented framework in the programming language Python to be able to flexibly describe different reactor geometries including thermal-hydraulics models of an arbitrary number of coolant channels as well as pumps, heat-exchangers and pools etc. In addition, custom objects such as the Autonomous Reactivity Control (ARC) system for enhanced passive safety are modeled in detail. In this paper we compare the performance of the CHD code with other similar fast reactor dynamics codes using a benchmark study of the European Sodium cooled Fast Reactor (ESFR). The results agree well, both qualitatively and quantitatively with the code benchmark. In addition, we demonstrate the code’s ability to simulate the long-term asymptotic behavior of a neutronically shut down reactor in an unprotected loss of flow scenario using a model of the Advanced Burner Reactor (ABR).