Applicability of GALE-86 Codes to Integral Pressurized Water Reactor designs

This report describes work that Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is doing to assist the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Office of New Reactors (NRO) staff in their reviews of applications for nuclear power plants using new reactor core designs. These designs include small integral PWRs (IRIS, mPower, and NuScale reactor designs), HTGRs, (pebble-bed and prismatic-block modular reactor designs) and SFRs (4S and PRISM reactor designs). Under this specific task, PNNL will assist the NRC staff in reviewing the current versions of the GALE codes and identify features and limitations that would need to be modified to accommodate the technical review of iPWR and mPower® license applications and recommend specific changes to the code, NUREG-0017, and associated NRC guidance. This contract is necessary to support the licensing of iPWRs with a near-term focus on the B&W mPower® reactor design. While the focus of this review is on the mPower® reactor design, the review of the code and the scope of recommended changes consider a revision of the GALE codes that would make them universally applicable for other types of integral PWR designs. The results of a detailed comparison between PWR and iPWR designs are reported here. Also included is an investigation more » of the GALE code and its basis and a determination as to the applicability of each of the bases to an iPWR design. The issues investigated come from a list provided by NRC staff, the results of comparing the PWR and iPWR designs, the parameters identified as having a large impact on the code outputs from a recent sensitivity study and the main bases identified in NUREG-0017. This report will provide a summary of the gaps in the GALE codes as they relate to iPWR designs and for each gap will propose what work could be performed to fill that gap and create a version of GALE that is applicable to integral PWR designs. « less