Technical bases and user's manual for the prototype of a Suppression Pool Aerosol Removal Code (SPARC)

This code was written to calculate the capture of aerosol particles in the pressure suppression pool (wet well) of a boiling water reactor under hypothetical accident conditions. The code incorporates five aerosol scrubbing models and two thermal-hydraulic models. The scrubbing models describe (1) steam condensation, (2) soluble particle growth in a humid atmosphere, (3) gravitational settling, (4) inertial deposition, (5) diffusional deposition. Mechanical entrainment of pool liquid by breaking of bubbles at the surface was also considered. An optional model for equilibrium pool temperature and a model for steam evaporation are the two thermal-hydraulic models used in the code. Steam evaporation was found to significantly retard deposition processes in pools near the boiling point. The code user supplies the values of several controlling variables in the code input. The SPARC output can include the decontamination factors (DF) of twenty different particle size groups, an overall DF for the whole particle distribution, particle log normal distribution parameters, and mass flow rates of particles (wet and dry) leaving the pool.