Facilities

Test facility was designed in such a way that it enables to conduct experiments at any inclination of the flow channel. Test facility will be also used for demonstrational and educational purposes. Transparency of the channel walls and the use of WMSs offer students great possibilities to get better understanding on the physics behind the flow behavior. Test section is equipped with in-house manufactured WMSs (32 × 32 wires). The sensors are recording the flow at 5000 frames/s. In addition, special channel section was designed and constructed that enables High-Speed Camera and PIV measurements by minimizing the optical distortions.

To study the behavior of the PCCS configuration planned to be used in the ABWR II concept and to gain experimental data for the validation work of MELCOR severe accident code, a scaled down PCCS model was designed and constructed at Lappeenranta University of Technology in Finland in 2012–2013. The PCCS model is connected to the drywell and wetwell compartments of PPOOLEX, which is acting as a host facility. Steam needed in the experiments is produced with the nearby PACTEL facility. The PCCS model consists of five horizontal U-tube shaped heat exchange tubes installed inside a secondary side liquid pool. The pool is in atmospheric pressure and covered by a lid with an exit pipe out of the laboratory and with viewing windows for video cameras.

The PPOOLEX facility consists of a pressure vessel containing a wet well compartment (condensation pool), dry well compartment, inlet plenum and air/steam line piping. An intermediate floor separates the compartments from each other but a route for gas/steam flow from the dry well to the wet well is created by a vertical blowdown pipe attached underneath the floor.

PACTEL is a volumetrically scaled (1: 305) facility including a pressurizer, high and low pressure emergency core cooling systems, and accumulators. The reactor vessel is simulated with a U-tube construction including separate downcomer and core sections. The core itself is consists 144 full-length, electrically heated fuel rod simulators. Component heights and relative elevations correspond to those of the full scale reactor to match the natural circulation gravitational heads in the reference system. Three coolant loops with double capacity steam generators are used to model six loops of the reference power plant. The facility is still in operation for example as an auxiliary system for the separate effect test facilities. Until now, 239 experiments have been carried out with the facility.

The PWR PACTEL facility consists of a reactor pressure vessel model, two loops with vertical steam generators, a pressurizer, and emergency core cooling systems. The new loops and steam generators of EPR style construction enable the PWR and EPR related experimental research. The pressure vessel model in PWR PACTEL comprises a U-tube construction modeling the downcomer, lower plenum, core and upper plenum. The core rod bundle consists of 144 electrically heated fuel rod simulators arranged in three parallel channels. The core can be powered by a maximum of 1 MW electric power supply. The maximum core power corresponds roughly to the scaled residual heating power of the EPR reactor. The total height of the PWR PACTEL pressure vessel model corresponds to the pressure vessel height of EPR. The volume ratio between the pressure vessels in PWR PACTEL and EPR is about 1/405.

The LOBI Project originated from a reactor safety research and development contract between the European Commission and the former Bundesminister für Forschung und Technologie of the Federal Republic of Germany. On the basis of contingent and perceived safety requirements, BMFT LOBI Project decided in 1972 on the need of an experimental programme to be conducted in a integral system test facility to investigate thermal-hydraulic phenomenologies relevant to accident conditions in pressurized water reactors (PWRs) of German design. As result of a tender, the execution of this study was awarded to the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.

Objectives:

• Investigation of Basic Phenomenologies governing the thermal-hydraulic response of an Integral System Test Facility for a range of PWR Operational and Accident Conditions.
• Provision of an Experimental Data Base for the Development and Improvement of Analytical Models and the Independent Assessment of Large System Codes used in LWR Safety Analysis.

Facility Configurations

The LOBI-MOD1 test facility configuration was designed to meet the relevant requirements originating from the objectives of the experimental investigations of Large and Intermediate Break Loss of Coolant Accidents (LOCA). A total of 28 tests were performed with this configuration during the period December 1979 to June 1982.



The LOBI-MOD2 test facility configuration, operating since April 1984, represents an upgraded version designed to meet also all relevant requierements related to the investigation of Small Break LOCAs and Special Transients. A total of 42 tests were performed in the period April 84 to June 1991.

Facility is dismanteled.

Test Matrix

In the PDF files attached below you can find more information on the Facility and a very useful Test Matrix with information of each experiment.

CERTA-TN

Also attached you may find information of CERTA - TN: European Thematic Network for the Consolidation of the Integral System Effect Experimental Databases for Reactor Thermal-Hydraulic Safety Analysis in which JRC participated with the LOBI Facility data and that was the origin to the development of the first version of the STRESA Database.