Comparison of results for global responses predicted by different multiphysics simulations of benchmark problems may fail to reveal potentially significant local modeling issues. An examination of code interactions in coupled simulations can provide more information, which may help identify potential modeling issues that went unnoticed during verification (and validation) of the individual codes, or may call into question approximations otherwise deemed reasonable at the individual code level.

We illustrate this challenge for the case of coupled neutronics/thermal-hydraulic transient simulations using one of the problems and contributed results documented in International Atomic Energy Agency TECDOC-1994. This recently published report documents the specifications of four numerical multiphysics pressurized heavy water reactor (PHWR) transient challenge problems and the results contributed by 10 participants. Our work is based on the pump rundown problem, where TECDOC-1994 suggests that differences in modeling and methods employed in thermal-hydraulics may be the dominant factor in the observed differences. We performed a more detailed assessment with two different multiphysics coupled computational frameworks using NESTLE-C/ARIANT and PUMA/RELAP-5. We also studied a pump seizure transient, a more challenging variant of the pump rundown transient. Several aspects were investigated: comparisons of standalone results, sensitivity to gap modeling, selection of boundary conditions at the pressurizer, and an examination of correlations used in ARIANT and RELAP-5.

Our assessment goes beyond the results for global parameters and dives into details of predictions at the channel level. This paper briefly describes the PHWR pump rundown transient problem and a pump seizure variant, the computational methods employed, and the areas investigated, and discusses some selected results.