The safety and efficiency of any nuclear power plant depend on the rate at which coolant systems can extract heat energy from the reactor. The thermal-hydraulic performance of a coolant system depends on highly geometry-dependent transient multi-phase flow phenomena (including boiling, cavitation, and condensation), which operate across a broad range of length and timescales and utilizes all modes of heat transfer (convection, conduction, and radiation).
Few simulation tools have the validated capability to capture all of the physics required to accurately predict the thermal-hydraulic performance of a cooling system over the full range of operating scenarios required to demonstrate the safety and efficiency of a nuclear reactor.
