NEST Hydrogen containment experiments for reactor safety (HYMERES/PANDA)
Ongoing

The NEST HYMERES (Hydrogen Containment Experiments for Reactor Safety) and PANDA project, spearheaded by the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland, focuses on studying safety-critical phenomena within containment structures during accidents. It provides hands-on training opportunities during experimental test campaigns conducted at the PSI PANDA facility, renowned as one of the most advanced containment test facilities globally. Simultaneously, the project aims to foster exploratory research initiatives under the mentorship of experts from participating organisations, with a particular emphasis on collaboration with universities.

Background

The NEST HYMERES and PANDA project has been created as the educational component of the NEA HYMERES-2 joint project (2017-2020) and the OECD/NEA PANDA joint project (2021-2025). 

The HYMERES-2 project is a major international project contributing to the extension of the experimental database on containment phenomena and on suppression pool issues.

The overall project scope is:

  • to improve the physical understanding of hydrogen release, transport and mixing in nuclear reactor containments;
  • to study suppression pool systems issues, with the goal to enhance modeling capabilities in support of safety assessments for current and new nuclear power plants;
  • to create a suitable experimental database for the validation of advanced computational tools.

The PANDA project is a follow-up of the HYMERES-2 project, and its general objective is to advance the knowledge on the containment of thermal-hydraulics associated with the following four topics:

  • Topic 1: Extend the database at large-scale on flows interacting with containment of internal structures and on basic containment phenomena.
  • Topic 2: Extend the database on activation of PWR containment spray system.
  • Topic 3: Small modular reactor (SMR) system tests.
  • Topic 4: Solve remaining issues on pressure suppression pool and BWR systems.

The NEA joint projects such as HYMERES-2 and PANDA benefit from a broad range of technical and scientific expertise in an international framework and are based on experimental and computational activities which have a potential to serve also as driving force for educational activities.

Objectives

Within the NEST HYMERES and PANDA project experimental and computational research activities have been carried out by NEST Fellows. The objectives of the NEST Fellow activities are:

  • to contribute with computational analyses to the definition of PANDA tests and to identify the optimal configurations to reach the objectives of the individual series;
  • to gain insight into the computational modeling needs to represent containment phenomena in compartments or structures;
  • to develop methodologies for processing the experimental data which could enhance the understanding of phenomena during specific tests;
  • to perform complementary experiments in small and medium scale facility which could provide a broader understanding of the phenomena investigated in the HYMERES-2 project.

Moreover, the NEST Fellows have the possibility to present the results of their activities in the HYMERES-2 and PANDA project meetings and in seminars organised at PSI.

Leading organisation

  • Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland

Participating organisations

  • University of Calgary, Canada
  • CNRS Orléans, France
  • IRSN, France
  • FZ Jülich, Germany
  • Kyung Hee University of Yongin, Korea 
  • Seoul National University, Korea
  • Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH), Switzerland
  • Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain (non-NEST member)
  • Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden (non-NEST member)
  • Oregon State University, United States
  • Texas A&M University, Unites States

Fellows

2019

  • Kevin Manohar, University of Calgary, Canada
  • Carlos Vazques-Rodriguez, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain 
  • Dmitry Grishchenko, KTH, Sweden 
  • Lea Zimmerman, ETH, Switzerland
  • Stephen King, Texas A&M, United States

2020 

  • Liam Cammiade, Aachen University, Germany
  • Brent Hollrah, Texas A&M, United States
  • Danielle South, Texas A&M, United States
  • Denise Chavez, Texas A&M, United States
  • Michael Gorman, Texas A&M, United States

2021 

  • Ethan Robert Kirkby, University of Calgary, Canada
  • Myeong Seon Chae, Kyung Hee University of Yongin, Korea 
  • Carlos Vazques-Rodriguez, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain 

2022 

  • Maegan Vocke, University of Calgary, Canada 
  • Sharath Nagaraju,  CRNS, France 
  • Myeong Seon Chae, Kyung Hee University of Yongin, Korea 
  • Sofia Arfinego del Carpio, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
  • Stephen King, Texas A&M, United States

2023 

  • Juwook Lee, Seoul National University, Korea
  • Angela Oliva, CEA Saclay, France
  • Sofia Arfinengo del Carpio, Politécnica de Madrid, Spain

2024 

  • Maegan Vocke, McMaster University, Canada 

The short presentation of the NEST Fellows can be found here.