Overview of key thermal–hydraulic phenomena in severe accident unfolding: Current knowledge and further needs

Severe Accidents (SA) developments are closely and deeply linked with thermal-hydraulics, that is, fluid flow combined with heat and mass transfer. The present paper synthesizes this relation during an accident unfolding and provides an overview of the remaining gaps associated to thermal-hydraulics that need to be addressed to reduce the uncertainties associated to SA and to optimize their management. Some of those thermal–hydraulic phenomena are common to other areas, but most of them are genuine to the SA domain. In addition to thermal–hydraulic phenomena affecting SA development, there are others major SA consequences, like fission product transport and eventual release to the environment, that are heavily affected by thermal–hydraulic boundary conditions and need to be investigated under the anticipated accident conditions. There is a consensus that any investigation to be launched in the coming years should have a direct impact on either reducing the uncertainties associated to their modelling or on optimizing their management, or on both; such consensus was soundly built in the EC EURSAFE project and has been renewed under the frame of the SARNET projects and the SNETP/NUGENIA/TA2 activities.