Hydraulic Model Calibration of a Nuclear Plant Service Water System

Erin Onat, Purple Mountain Technology Group; Trey Walters, P.E., Applied Flow Technology; David M. Mobley, AREVA Inc.; and James J. Mead, Duke Energy - Presented at the ASME 2016 Power Conference, June 30, 2016

As pipe networks age, build-up [scaling] and corrosion decrease pipe diameter and increase pipe roughness, leading to significant pressure drops and lower flow rates. When modeling the hydraulics of these systems, calibrating the pipes to account for additional scaling and/or fouling can be vital to accurately predicting the hydraulic behavior of the system.

An automated, multi-variable goal-seeking software was used to calibrate the raw water system of the Duke McGuire Nuclear Station (MNS). This calibration process involved three phases. The first phase was the testing of the automated, multivariable goal-seeking software on a previously calibrated system.

The second phase was the calibration of a partial data set. The third phase was the calibration of a complete data set. The automated goal-seeking software (AFT Fathom GSC) was found to have varying degrees of success in each phase.

At the conclusion of the calibration process, the partial data calibration of two parallel systems at MNS yielded average overall calibration accuracies of 2.1% and 1% for flow rates, and 1.2 psig (8.4 kPa-g) and 1.7 psig (11.9 kPa-g) for pressures. The complete data calibration of one of these systems at MNS yielded an average overall calibration accuracy of 2.3% for flow rates, and 1.4 psig (9.5 kPa-g) for pressures.

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