E-SCAPE: A scale facility for liquid-metal, pool-type reactor thermal hydraulic investigations

• The E-SCAPE facility is a thermal hydraulic scale model of the MYRRHA fast reactor.
• The focus is on mixing and stratification in liquid-metal pool-type reactors.
• Forced convection, natural convection and the transition are investigated.
• Extensive instrumentation allows validation of computational models.
• System thermal hydraulic and CFD models have been used for facility design.

MYRRHA (Multi-purpose hYbrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications) is a flexible fast-spectrum research reactor under design at SCK·CEN. MYRRHA is a pool-type reactor with lead bismuth eutectic (LBE) as primary coolant.The proper understanding of the thermal hydraulic phenomena occurring in the reactor pool is an important issue in the design and licensing of the MYRRHA system and liquid-metal cooled reactors by extension. Model experiments are necessary for understanding the physics, for validating experimental tools and to qualify the design for the licensing.The E-SCAPE (European SCAled Pool Experiment) facility at SCK·CEN is a thermal hydraulic 1/6-scale model of the MYRRHA reactor, with an electrical core simulator, cooled by LBE. It provides experimental feedback to the designers on the forced and natural circulation flow patterns. Moreover, it enables to validate the computational methods for their use with LBE.The paper will elaborate on the design of the E-SCAPE facility and its main parameters. Also the experimental matrix and the pre-test analysis using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and system thermal hydraulics codes will be described.