Coupling CFD code with system code and neutron kinetic code

•Coupling interface between CFD code Fluent and system code Athlet was created.•Athlet code is internally coupled with neutron kinetic code Dyn3D.•Explicit coupling of overlapped computational domains was used.•A coupled system of Athlet/Dyn3D+Fluent codes was successfully tested on a real case.

The aim of this work was to develop the coupling interface between CFD code Fluent and system code Athlet internally coupled with neutron kinetic code Dyn3D. The coupling interface is intended for simulation of complex transients such as Main Steam Line Break scenarios, which cannot be modeled separately first by system and neutron kinetic code and then by CFD code, because of the feedback between the codes. In the first part of this article, the coupling method is described. Explicit coupling of overlapped computational domains is used in this work. The second part of the article presents a demonstration simulation performed by the coupled system of Athlet/Dyn3D and Fluent. The “Opening a Steam Dump to the Atmosphere” test carried out at the Temelin NPP (VVER-1000) was simulated by the coupled system. In this simulation, the primary and secondary circuits were modeled by Athlet, mixing in downcomer and lower plenum was simulated by Fluent and heat generation in the core was calculated by Dyn3D. The results of the simulation with Athlet/Dyn3D+Fluent were compared with the experimental data and the results from a calculation performed with Athlet/Dyn3D without Fluent.