TRACE qualification via analysis of the EIR gas-loop experiments with smooth rods

Several gas-loop experimental programs were carried out during the 1970–1980s at the Eidgenössisches Institut für Reaktorforschung (EIR, now PSI), Switzerland. In the present work, a wide range of thermal–hydraulics tests for smooth rods, which form part of the experiments conducted at the time, have been reanalyzed with the aim of qualifying the TRACE code. The latter constitutes the thermal–hydraulics module of PSI’s FAST code system, currently being applied to the multi-physics analysis of advanced fast reactor systems, including the Generation IV Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (GFR). It is shown, from the present analysis, that the built-in TRACE heat transfer and friction correlations are indeed quite suitable for gas cooling under prototypic GFR conditions.