Numerical study on Ingress of Coolant Event experiments with CONSEN code

The Loss of Coolant Accident in a Vacuum Chamber is one of the safety issues for the fusion facilities. With the aim of validating computer codes able to simulate thermal-hydraulic transient events in fusion reactors, experimental tests were carried out for comparing experimental data with simulations results. Among others, the Integrated ICE test facility (JAERI) has been developed to reproduce the ITER reactor geometry with a scaling factor of 1/1600. In order to perform safety assessment of fusion reactors, several computer codes have been developed and among them CONSEN, a fast running computer code developed to simulate thermal-hydraulic transients. The present paper is aimed at identifying the CONSEN capability to reproduce the behavior of main physical parameters during an Ingress of Coolant Event and consequent loss of vacuum in the Plasma Chamber of a fusion reactor. In particular, the CONSEN simulations results are here compared with experimental data obtained at the modified Integrated ICE test facility during the tests P1 and P7. Simulation results and experimental data have been compared and a good agreement has been identified for most of analyzed parameters. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.