The Most Thoroughly Tested Reactor Design

The AP600 test programs were thorough and exhaustive and the results were valuable. The AP600 is now the most thoroughly tested reactor design ever reviewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The very sophisticated, detailed, conservative computer codes used to analyze the AP600 have been validated. In some cases, test data was used to refine the codes. The codes predict and the test data confirms AP600 plant safety under a long list of scenarios, including normal, abnormal, and accident. These tests met the very demanding requirements defined at the start by the DOE, the NRC, and the supporting utilities.

Testing Objective

The primary objective of the extensive AP600 testing program has been to supply hard data to verify computer codes. The testing served to verify that the computer codes are able to accurately predict how the AP600's systems will work.

Testing Facilities

To perform the testing, world-leading facilities were used. The major facilities appear below:

Long Term Passive Core Cooling Tests
Oregon State University

Full-Height Full-Pressure Core Cooling Tests (SPES-2)
Piacenza, Italy

Reactor Coolant System Automatic Depressurization Tests (ADS)
Casaccia, Italy

Containment Cooling Wind Tunnel Tests
London, Ontario, Canada's University of Western Ontario

Containment Vessel Water Distribution / Heat Transfer Tests (PCCS)
Westinghouse Science and Technology Center in Pittsburgh

Core Makeup Tank Tests

At its Waltz Mill test facility site in Madison PA, Westinghouse constructed a scaled version of the core makeup tank. It was used to investigate the thermal-hydraulic behavior of the tank under a wide range of conditions. The data from this series of tests was a major source for the refinement of computer model codes.

Other Tests

The highlights of the AP600 testing program were described above. Also tested were reactor coolant pumps, check valves and incore instrumentation, and a wide variety of flow and heat transfer tests. Every aspect of the passive safety system was tested-- from safety-grade components to the containment cooling and core cooling systems.