Numerous large and small scale facilities simulating various nuclear reactor components and systems have been designed and built. Experiments simulating normal operation, as well as accident scenarios (often involving high energy levels), have been performed providing test data for use in code validation and licensing submissions.
Typical Facilities
Multi-Channel Pressure Tube Burst Facility
CANDU Pressure Tube Burst facility (full scale) with nine fuel channels to study the mechanical interaction of in-core components following a pressure tube/calandria tube burst at normal reactor operating conditions.
CANDU Header/Feeder facility (full scale) to investigate of the distribution of the emergency coolant from the reactor headers into the feeders at normal reactor operating conditions.
Cold Water Injection Test loop (large scale) to investigate the effects of emergency cooling in full scale, parallel CANDU fuel channels. This loop has also been used to investigate the maintenance cooling requirements in CANDU fuel cannels at shutdown conditions.
CANDU fuelling machine simulator to investigate fuelling machine operational problems and perform qualification testing of new fuel channel components.
CANDU fuel channel (full scale) to perform cross flow experiments and investigate various LOCA transients.
Vertical BWR channel to perform counter current flow limiting (CCFL) experiments on BWR fuel assemblies at LOCA accident conditions.
Large scale test facilities to determine removal mechanisms of radioactive aerosols in nuclear containments.
CANDU calandria vessel (¼ scale, 2 dimensional) to perform moderator velocity and temperature distribution experiments.
