Open thermal-hydraulic research issues in Western nuclear power reactors

It is common practice to access the system or component behavior of Nuclear Power Reactors on the basis of code calculations, operating experience and common engineering practice. It is, therefore, necessary to base the design and the approval by Licensing Bodies on a confidence in thermal-hydraulic and neutronic knowledge. It has be assessed if relevant phenomena may exist which have not yet been identified. This question is assessed by studying if the three basic safety requirements - the control of the reactivity - the cooling of the core - the confinement of fission products are met; if these requirements are met, the plant is safe. Because these basic safety requirements are generally met - with the possible exception of containment integrity when exposed to loads from Severe Accidents - there are no additional needs for research to validate the safety level of existing reactors. However, research for new designs with a higher safety level or new phenomena might be mandatory. Also some additional research will be necessary to keep the level of safety (e.g. due to aging) or might be beneficial to reduce operating costs. Besides keeping a high safety level industry is aiming for lifetime extension, power increase, higher burn-ups and higher availability. Therefore, it is understandable that industry decreased its support for thermal-hydraulics for operating reactors. With regard to operation and the safety of existing reactors the author does not know of any request by licensing authorities for major R&D in thermal-hydraulics. Only in the area of Severe Accidents with core melt sequences some validation is requested. There is one area of common interest for utilities as well as for licensing bodies, namely the full scope, real-time simulators. Industry, licensing bodies and the European Union are responsible to keep the competence in nuclear safety - consequently also in thermal-hydraulics. Because advanced computer codes require much more information than codes in the past, basic research is needed to meet these requirements. Reliable models for computer codes as well as code validation can only be achieved with a good instrumentation in related experiments. Selected areas for further thermal-hydraulic research for nuclear reactors are presented.