RELAP5 is a nuclear reactor safety analysis code.[^1] RELAP stands for reactor excursion and leak analysis program.[^2] This safety analysis includes coupled simulations of reactor kinetics and thermal-hydraulics of the reactor core.[^1] RELAP5 used an operator-splitting approach to solve the equations for thermal fluids, point kinetics, and heat conduction.[^1] It is solved with a semi-implicit integration scheme.[^1] It uses a staggered mesh for the finite volume method solver.[^1] The thermodynamic state variables (density, pressure, temperature) are evaluated at the volume center, while the fluid velocities are evaluated at the surface.[^1] In RELAP5, the heat conduction equation is solved with the finite difference method, and the Point Kinetics equations use a 5th order Runge-Kutta method.[^1] In this simulation, the reactivity is assumed to vary linearly within timesteps.[^1] It uses explicit data exchanges between the point kietics model and the other calculations, because the point kinetics equations lag the thermal, fluids, transfer, and conduction equations.[^1] The reactor power is used in the thermal fluid euqations at the beginning of each timestep. [^1] At the end of the timestep the thermal equations are used to evaluate the reactivity for the point kinetics.[^1] In RELAP5, the time-dependent volumes are used to set the boundary conditions.[^1] The pipe represents the thermal fluids in the core.[^1] A heat structure represents the heat conduction in the fuel rods.[^1]
[[RELAP-7]] – newer version
[[RELAP]] – original version
[[Asco Nuclear Power Plant]] – RELAP5 developed by analyzing the Asco reactor
- zhangPOINTKINETICSCALCULATIONS2013[^1]
- ncstatenuclearSeminarMultiphysicsModeling2019[^2]