Evaluation of the thermal-hydraulic software GOTHIC for nuclear safety analyses

Abstract: The aim of this master theses was to evaluate the thermal-hydraulic calculation software GOTHIC for the purpose of nuclear containment safety analyses. The evaluation was performed against some of the Marviken full scale containment experiments and a comparison was also made against the two codes RELAP5 and COPTA. Models with different complexity were developed in GOTHIC and the parameters pressure, temperature and energy in different areas of the enclosure was investigated. The GOTHIC simulations in general showed a good agreement with the Marviken experimental results and had an overall better agreement then RELAP5. From the results it was possible to conclude that the developed GOTHIC model provided a good representation of the Marviken facility.