Analysis of an ex-vessel break in the ITER divertor cooling loop

In the present work the integrated ECART code, developed for severe accident analysis in LWRs, is applied on the analysis of a large ex-vessel break in the divertor cooling loop of the international thermonuclear experimental reactor (ITER). A comparison of the ECART results with those obtained by Studsvik Nuclear AB (S), utilizing the MELCOR code, was also performed in the general framework of the quality assurance program for the ITER accident analyses. This comparison gives a good agreement in the results, both for thermal-hydraulics and the environmental radioactive releases. Mainly these analyses, from the point of view of the ITER safety, confirm that the accidental overpressure inside the vacuum vessel and the Tokamak cooling water system (TWCS) Vault is always well below the design limits and that the radioactive releases are adequately confined below the ITER guidelines. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.