Assessment of Scaling Criteria adopted in Designing Nuclear Power Plants Experimental Simulators

Abstract The choice of the scaling laws and particularly the extrapolation of data measured in experimental facilities for application to real plants remains an important unresolved issue in Nuclear Reactor Safety. One of such experimental facilities, named PIPER-ONE, is in construction at “Dipartimento di Costruzioni Meccaniche e Nucleari” of Pisa University with the aim of simulating Small Break LOCAs in BWRs. This paper presents an in depth analysis of scaling principles adopted in similar apparatuses in the world. Besides it deals with the problem of the extrapolation of experimental data to real systems; in order to achieve this, a comparative analysis is carried out with reference to calculated or measured transients arising or assumed in ROSA-III, FIX-II, PIPER-ONE and BWR plants.