A scaling study of the natural circulation flow of the ex-vessel core catcher cooling system of EU-APR1400 for designing a scale-down test facility for design verification

In this paper a scaling study on the steady state natural circulation flow along the flow path of the ex vessel core catcher cooling system of EU-APR1400 is described, and the scaling criteria for reproducing the same steady state thermalhydraulic characteristics of the natural circulation flow as a prototype core catcher cooling system in the scale-down test facility are derived in terms of the down-comer pipe diameter and orifice resistance. (authors)