PANDA experimental database and further needs for containment analyses

PANDA is a large-scale, multi-compartment, thermal-hydraulics facility located at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland and is operated for nuclear safety projects. PANDA is continuously upgraded with new components and instruments to meet the requirements of each new project. The modularity of the facility and its instrumentation provide unique opportunities to perform experiments ranging from basic containment phenomena studied mainly in a single vessel to integral behavior of Passive Containment Cooling Systems (PCCS) requiring up to six PANDA vessels and four passive condensers (PCCs, IC) submerged in four water pools. Experimental data analyses are performed using system codes, lumped parameter (LP) severe accident codes and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes. In this paper, we provide an overview of the PANDA experimental database and identify further data needs for containment analyses, considering the main results of recently completed PANDA projects.

Automated summary

PANDA is a large-scale thermal-hydraulics facility in Switzerland, used for nuclear safety projects. Its modularity and instrumentation allow for a wide range of experiments, from basic containment phenomena to examining the behavior of Passive Containment Cooling Systems. The experimental data obtained from PANDA is analyzed using various codes. This paper provides an overview of the PANDA experimental database and identifies further data needs for containment analyses based on recent projects.