Annals of Nuclear Energy 75 (2015) 365376

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Annals of Nuclear Energy

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Quantication of in-containment ssion products source term

for 1000 MWe PWR under loss of coolant accident
Khurram Mehboob a,b,, Kwangheon Park b, Rehan Khan c
a

Department of Nuclear Engineering, College of Engineering, Kyung Hee University Seocheon-dong, Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do 446-701, South Korea
Department of Physics, Comsats Institute of Information Technology, Check Shahzad, Park Road, 44000 Islamabad, Pakistan
c
Center of Excellence in Science and Applied Technology (CEAST), 46000 Islamabad, Pakistan
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 22 May 2014
Received in revised form 24 July 2014
Accepted 23 August 2014
Available online 16 September 2014
Keywords:
LOCA
Pressurized water reactor
Source term
Severe accident
Fission product activity
Iodine

a b s t r a c t
The aim of this work is the modeling and simulation of in-containment ssion products (FPs) quantication and behavior under loss of coolant accident (LOCA) in terms of NUREG-1465 key aspects. For this
purpose, a kinetic model has been developed to determine the quantication and behavior of in-containment source term after loss of coolant accident for typical 1000 MWe PWR. A more realistic approach of
continuous release of ssion products from damaged core has been implemented with coolant retention.
The simulation for in-containment ssion product quantication inuenced by containment atmosphere
and containment system response has been carried out. Dramatic results have been obtained upon comparison study of ssion product behaviors with different computational values. Moreover a contradiction
in mixing rate (wx) value has been observed with a factor of 10 in comparison with Saeed et al. (2012).
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The detailed analysis of response of a nuclear power plant (NPP)
under severe accident is needed to access the safety and risk margins of a NPP. The potential source term under reactor hypothetical
severe accident is highly inuenced by quantication of ssion
products release inside the reactor containment building. The
source term have great importance in safety assessment, e.g., control room radiological assessment (USNRC, 2003), radiological consequences of severe accidents (Haste et al., 2006) and for
emergency zone estimation (Wu et al., 2006), etc. The NUREG1465 report (USNRC, 1995) was the major report for providing
the most realistic estimation of in-containment source term during
reactor severe core damage scenarios. Several in pile and out of pile
experiments have been conducted to estimate the ssion product
behavior in reactor containment building (Mehboob et al.,
2012a). The Phbus-FP program (Schwarz et al., 1999) was the
most ambitious project ever launched to study the ssion product
behavior in the area of reactor severe accidents. The aim of this
project was to reduce the uncertainty in evaluation of source term
Corresponding author at: Department of Nuclear Engineering, College of
Engineering, Kyung Hee University Seocheon-dong, Giheung-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do 446-701, South Korea. Tel.: +82 031 201 3654; fax: +82 031 202 2410.
E-mail addresses: khurramhrbeu@gmail.com (K. Mehboob), kpark@khu.ac.kr (K.
Park).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2014.08.056
0306-4549/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

and to investigate the ssion products, structural and control rod

material release from the degraded core as well as their transportation and deposition through coolant, and their behavior in the
containment building of the NPP (Girault et al., 2007).
The source term is highly dependent on reactor type, reactor
operation history, containment type and its performance under
accident conditions to determine the safety margins of a NPP.
The magnitude of in-containment ssion products activity depends
upon the number of factors, including reactor type, reactor thermal
power, damage propagation, accident sequences, and release fraction. The ssion products, their chemical and physical forms as a
function of time also inuence in-containment source term
(IAEA, 1999). Typically, chemical state of oxide fuel can be grouped
as volatile ssion products (Kr, Xe, Br and I); metallic precipitates
(alloys) (Mo, Tc, Ru, Rh, Pd, Ag, Cd, In, Sn, Sb and Te); ceramic (oxides) (Rb, Cs, Ba, Zr, Nb, Mo and Te); and oxides dissolved in the fuel
(Sr, Zr, Nb, Y, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Pm and Sm) (Iglesias et al., 1999). But,
the dominant radioisotopes contribute in accident source term are
noble gas group (Xe and Kr), volatile radioisotopes group (I, Cs and
Te) and low volatile group (Sr, Br and Ru) (USNRC, 1995; IAEA,
1999). The activation product, transuranic elements, actinides
and daughter elements are also released in a signicant amount.
Therefore, their contribution to containment activity cannot be
ignored. However, our interest in this work is to quantify the dominant ssion products delivering whole-body dose (noble gases),
thyroid dose (iodine) lungs and internal dose (volatiles ones).

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K. Mehboob et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 75 (2015) 365376

According to reactor review (Australia, 1993) the commercial

reactors have less probabilities of accidents as compare to research
reactors. However, the radiological consequences of commercial
power plants are much more severe than the research reactors.
Currently, 435 nuclear power plants are operating in 30 countries
worldwide generating net electricity of 372,022 MWe and 72 commercial NPPs are under construction expecting to generate net
electricity 68,344 MWe (ENS, 2014; IAEA, 2010). Moreover, in
60 years history or more only three major accidents (TMI-2,
1979; Chernobyl, 1986; and Fukushima, 2011) has happened. Even
with low probability of accidents the Probability Safety Assessments (PSA) for commercial NPPs are highly demanded.
Efforts have been done to improve the safety of light water
NPPs and several safety analyses has been carried out in different
forms for radiological consequences (Mehboob et al., 2012a, 2014).
Lee and Ko (2008) quantify the severe accident source term release
fractions for Westinghouse 3-loop PWR based upon TID-14844
and NUREG-1465 for station Blackout (SBO), LOCA, and LBLOCA
at different stages of containment failures. Li et al. (2012) has evaluated the radiological consequences for an alternative source term
of Chinese 900 WMe PWR using the radiological assumption for
design base accidents (DBA) specied in RG 1.183. Mehboob and
Xinrong (2012b) have evaluated the source term for 2 loops
PWR for LOCA, SBO, SBLOCA and ow blockage accident (FBA).
They also measured the radioisotopes dependency on containment performance, including spray ow rate, containment exhaust
rate (Mehboob et al., 2013). Ammirabile et al. (2011) evaluated the
source term for 1000 MW 3-loop PWR under loss of the residual
heat removal (RHR) system. Huang et al. (2010) has studied the
mitigation in in-vessel source term of Chinese 600 MW PWR for
SBO, loss of feed water (LOFW) and large break LOCA, including
feed-and-bleed in primary and secondary circuit and ex-vessel
cooling. Recently, Yangmo et al. (2014) has used the (Mehboob
and Xinrong, 2012b) modeling to carry out the simulation and
radiological dose of hypothetical accidents at Saman nuclear
power plant. Pappas et al. (2014) have used the same model for
the Greek Research Ractor-1 and estimate the source term for
LOCA, Reactivity initiation accident (RIA) and fuel handling accident (FHA). They also measured the effective dose corresponding
to accidents. Eslinger et al. (2014) has measured the radioxenon
release from the Fukushima Dai-ichi NPP. He also measured the
atmospheric dispersion of xenon. Additionally, Winiarek et al.
(2014) has estimated the 137Cs source term from Fukushima Daiichi NPP. They have proposed an inverse modeling algorithm
which depends upon atmospheric transport models. Huang et al.
(2014) has applied simplied Level 2 PSA approach estimate the
severe accident source term for typical 1000 MWe PWR. He also
compare the release fraction of different isotopes with general
source term for nine potential accidents published in WASH1400 (USNRC, 1975). Saeed et al. (2012) carried out the kinetic
modeling and simulation of ssion product activity (FPA) in FORTRAN 90. He has applied his model for MTR system to study the
ssion product activity inside the containment for loss of coolant
accident.
In this work, we have developed a more realistic single containment model for conventional PWRs. The modeling and simulation of in-containment source term after core damage
accidents have been carried by this model. The model uses the
time dependent activity and continuous release source from
the molten core or debris. The modeling and simulation have
been carried out in MATLAB, which used the post-accident conditions, isotopes data and core inventory as its prime inputs
from an input le. The core inventory of 1000 MWe PWR has
been evaluated with BURNUP program, which has already been
bench marked with ORIGEN2 (Croft, 1980) by Mehboob et al.
(2013).

2. Methodology
The in-containment airborne radioactivity is major source of
release in case of leakage. If there is a leakage in containment, then
there is a possibility of maximum release of airborne in-containment activity into environment (Lee and Ko, 2008). Therefore, incontainment airborne activity is needed to quantify for safety
assessment. In this study, a more realistic model for in-containment
airborne activity is developed with more realistic approach, e.g.,
continuous source of activity from molten/damaged fuel into coolant then coolant to containment air. The modeling and simulation
have been carried out in MATLAB. For this purpose, a two-stage
methodology has been adopted (a) evaluate the activity in the core
just before the accident. (b) Kinetic quantication of airborne activity under conned conditions. The core activity has been evaluated
at depletion of fuel (37.25 months) in order to get maximum core
activity. A 1000 MWe conventional PWR with single can type
containment is selected for this study having a large free volume
over the plant. The airborne activity has been quantied for loss
of coolant accident (LOCA) under NUREG-1465 (USNRC, 1995)
and regulatory guide 1.183 (USNRC, 2000) assumptions.

3. Reactor description
A conventional pressurized water reactor (PWR) has been
selected as the reference reactor because it is one of the common
types of reactor installed in major countries. The reference plant
is a conventional typical two loops PWR with two stem generations
installed at the radial sides of core. Reactor uses light water as its
coolant and moderator. The core design power is 1000 MWe with
average fuel enrichment of 2.5 wt% of uranium. The equilibrium
reactor core is composed of 177 fuel assemblies and 69 control
rod assemblies. Each assembly has 208 fuel rods. The core height
is 12.42 m with active core length of 3.66 m having total water volume of 113.55 m3. Core power is controlled by 1104 control rods.
The control rod material is composed of Ag (85%), In (10%) and
Cd (5%). The pitch of control rod is 1.443 cm and fuel rod outer
diameter is 1.092 cm. Reactor uses UO2 as its fuel. The overall
physical dimensions of fuel are same as those for standard fuel elements. The schematic diagram of the core cross section is shown in
Fig. 1. The primary coolant ow is controlled by four reactor coolant pumps (Henry, 2007; Jak, 1981). The design parameters of
1000 MW reactor are enlisted in Table 1.
The reference reactor has can type containment. The plant
containment has volume of 57,600 m3; free surface area is almost
34,374 m2 (Mehboob et al., 2013) and dome height is 46.7 m. Since,
containment is a large dry containment type it has large capacity to
sustain high pressure. The large dry containment design can sustain 376 kPa pressure (Thadani, 1993). The containment spray system is installed at the elevation of 40.0 m. The design activation
pressure for spray system is 515 kPa (Thadani, 1993). Two ventilation trains are installed in the containment system one with
4.7 m3/s ow rate (emergency ow), and other has 14.1 m3/s ow
rate (normal ow) (FSAR 6.5., 2011; Mehboob et al., 2013). Large
dry containment is leaked tight having 1% leakage of containment
volume per day, which is 0.007 m3/s. A purging system is installed
in the containment for air ltration through recirculation. The
recirculation ow rate is 4.179 m3/s.
High efciency particulate air lters (HEPA) in conjunction with
activated charcoal lters and heaters are employed within the containment ventilation system. The reactor containment building is
provided with air supply system that brings the outside air into
the building, and releases back thought lters. In accident situations, reactor trips to emergency or isolation state to prevent the
release of activity into atmosphere and starts purging and cleaning

K. Mehboob et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 75 (2015) 365376

367

Fig. 1. Top view of 100 MWe PWR core (B&W Design) (Henry, 2007).

Table 1
Design parameters of typical 1000 MW reactor.a

Parameter

Value

Reactor
Fuel type
Average fuel enrichment (wt%)
Specic power (MWth/kg U)
Power density (MWth/m3)
System pressure (MPa)
Reactor coolant system pressure (MPa)
Reactor coolant ow (kg/s)
Core height (m)
Core active region height (m)
Core diameter (m2)
No. of fuel assemblies
No. of control rod assemblies
Cladding material
Fuel rod outer diameter (cm)
Rod pitch (cm)
Fuel assembly matrix
Coolent inlet temperature k
Coolent outlet temperature k
Control rods
Control rod material

PWR
UO2
2.4%
33.3
66.6
15.166
14.96
17387.7
12.41
3.65
3.81
177
69
Zircaloy
1.092
1.443
15  15
564.81
592.98
1104
Ag (80%)In (15%)Cd (5%)

Henry (2007) and Jak (1981).

through recirculation lters and spray system (Mehboob and

Xinrong, 2012b). The schematic diagram of plant and containment
building is shown in Fig. 2.
4. Accident sequence
In commercial power reactors, the nominal accident hardly
could damage a fraction of fuel pallets. Only 50 percent or little
more core could damage even with most severe accident conditions. The loss of AC and DC power along with unavailability of
emergency core cooling system (ECCS) due to natural disaster
results in meltdown of Fukushima Dai-ichi unit one, unit two
and unit three. The 55% core has melted at unit 1, 35% on unit 2
and 30% core damage is declared in unit 3 (TEPCO News, 2011).
A partial meltdown has been reported at Three Mile Island unit 2
due to the pilot operated relief valve (PORV) stuck open with no

auxiliary feed water resulting in coolant loss and core depressurization. Only 45% core damage was deported in this accident
(Wolf et al., 1994). The TMI-2 containment was kept under the
design pressure to mitigate the environmental release.
A nominal fraction of core could be damaged even with worst
LOCA if emergency core cooling system (ECCS), high pressure injection system (HPIS), low pressure injection system (LPIS) accumulator injection and reood water storage are available. If these
systems are unavailable or malfunctions with human errors or core
is over depressurized under LOCA, then there is a probability of a
signicant ratio of core damage. The probability of such an accident is ranged from 8  106 to 4  106 per year (USNRC, 1975).
In this work, we have considered LOCA with unavailability of ECCS,
HPIS, LPIS, accumulator injections and re-ooding. Only containment heat removal system is available to maintain the containment integrity. In this condition, it is close to damage the core
from 10% to 50%. The containment integrity is assumed to maintain
by keeping the containment under design pressure. The switching
from normal to emergency and isolation of contaminant is available with 10% recirculation lter efciency.
5. Analytical modeling
The kinetic study of the in-containment source term has been
evaluated using two stage methodology. (a) Core inventory measurements at the time of initiation of the accident, (b) the evaluation of in-containment volumetric activity using the single
containment model for PWRs. In (USNRC, 1975) single containment model was used for PWRs and BWRs. Later, (IAEA, 1986,
2008) used the single containment model for the research reactors.
However, in 2000, the single containment model is characterized
for PWRs in NUREG-1465 (USNRC, 1995) and is re-characterized
in Regulatory Guide 1.183 (2000) with more reliable and realistic
assumptions. The single containment model is based on simple
balance equation of rate of change of volumetric activity equal to
rate of gain in volumetric activity minus rate of loss in volumetric
activity. The gain terms are based on continuous source from molten corium and suspension of isotopes from free surfaces. The loss
terms are based on recirculation ltration, natural decay, leakage
from containment, removal by spray system and deposition in

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K. Mehboob et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 75 (2015) 365376

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of 1000 MWe PWR and containment building.

containment surfaces. If we dene the volumetric activity as qv (t)

in Bq/m3 then volumetric activity in containment with balance
equation is as follows (USNRC, 1975, 2000, 1995).

dqv t
S
F
g
kqv t  ut qv t  a qv t  Rres rc qv t
dt
V
V
V
Lr
S
 qv t r qs t Q t
V
V
(

HEi

Iodine

3hEa
2d

Solid FPs

The rst term on the right hand side is decay of isotope. The 2nd
term is the deposition of isotopes on the containment surfaces S
(m2) with deposition velocity ut (m/s). The 3rd term is the removal
of isotopes by containment spray system having F (m3/s) spray
ow rate and a is the collection parameter for iodine and solid ssion products. The 4th term is the removal term via recirculation
ltration, which have recirculation rate Rres (m3/s) and grc is the
recirculation collection efciency. The 5th term is volumetric leakage rate through containment exhaust, and Lr (m3/s) is exhaust
rate. The 6th term is the time dependent gain in volumetric activity
Q(t) from the molten corium and debris in Bq/m3. Where qv (t) is
volumetric activity (Bq/m3); ut is deposition velocity (m/s); k is
decay constant (s1); S is free surface area of containment (m2);
V is total volume of containment (m3); F is containment spray ow
rate (m3/s); H is partition coefcient; Ei is droplet collection efciency for elemental iodine; h is containment height (m); Ea is
droplet collection efciency for aerosols; d is droplet diameter

(m); Rres is recirculation rate (m3/s); grc is ltration collection efciency; r is re-suspension rate (s1); qs (t) is the activity on surfaces
of containment (Bq/m2); and Q(t) is time dependent source of volumetric airborne activity from molten corium (Bq.m3/s). The values of these parameters used for PWR are listed in Table 2.
The balance equation for the activity on free surfaces also has
the gain term and loss term. If we consider qs (t) as the
surface activity, then the balance equation for surface activity is
as follows.

dqs t
ut qv t  rqs t
dt

Table 2
Important parameters used in the single containment model (USNRC, 1991; Mehboob
et al., 2013).
Parameter

Symbol

Value

Containment free volume

Containment free surface
Leakage rate
Core damage fraction
Fuel release fraction
Water release fraction

V (m3)
S (m2)
Lr (m3/s)
fc (%)
ff (%)
fp (%)

Recirculation rate
Recirculation ltration efciency
Exhaust lter efciency
Fraction of activity released immediately released
Mixing rate
Spray ow rate
Droplet size

Rres (m3/s)
gres (%)
gex (%)
Fx (%)
wx (s1)
F (m3/s)
d (micron)

57,600
34,374
1.015.0
1050
104102
0.1
0.0001
15
1090%
9098
1070
0.11.0
0.11.0
100

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K. Mehboob et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 75 (2015) 365376

Table 3
PWR fractional release into the containment during LOCA (RG 1.183, 2000; USNRC, 1995).
No.

Groups

Elements

Gap release

Early in-vessel

Total

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Noble gases
Halogens
Alkali metals
Tellurium group
Barium, strontium
Noble metals
Cerium group
Lanthanides

Xe, Kr
I, Br
Cs, Rb
Te, Sb, Se
Ba, Sr
Ru, Rh, Pd, Mo, Tc, Co
Ce, Pu, Np
La, Zr, Nd, Eu, Nb, Pm, Pr, Sm, Y

0.05
0.05
0.05
0
0
0
0
0

0.95
0.35
0.25
0.05
0.02
0.0025
0.0005
0.0002

1.0
0.4
0.3
0.05
0.02
0.0025
0.0005
0.0002

The rst term on the right-hand side is gain term through

deposition of isotopes on free surface with deposition velocity
ut (m/s); and the second term is loss term with re-suspension rate
r (s1). Since, during operation of the NPPs, there is some activity
on free surfaces which could be neglected. Therefore, we have
assumed that there is no activity on free surfaces at the time of
initiation of an accident, i.e., t = 0 s, qs (t) = 0 Bq/m2. During operation of a NPP somehow activity is already available in the containment air. Since because of purging and cleaning the amount
of activity is legible as compare to accidental release thereby at
t = 0 s; qv (t) = fx  ff  fp  fx  fc  Ac/V Bq/m3. Where, Ac is the
activity in the core at the time of initiation of the accident; ff is
release fraction from fuel to coolant; fp is the coolant release from
coolant to air; fc is the fraction core damage due to an accident. fx
is fraction of activity that became airborne due to burst release
because of rapture in piping and rest of activity gradually enters
into the containment from coolant as function of time. The
release fraction from fuel to coolant for revised radioisotopes
grouping is listed in Table 3 (RG 1.183, 2000; USNRC, 1995).
Several reports declared that the activity in the containment is
available with time and fraction of activity become airborne just
after the initiation of the accident (USNRC, 1995, 2000). In this
work, we have assumed that the 0.01% of activity is already available in the containment due to operation of NPP and only 1020%
of activity becomes airborne with the initiation of accident and rest
of activity enters into the coolant then coolant to containment as
function of time. The molten corium and debris after the accident
become the time dependent source to contribute in airborne activity. This is more realistic assumption. The time dependent source
Q(t) is considered as the source rst increases then decreases exponentially (El-Jaby et al., 2010).

Q t 1  f x Ac f f f p f c

K wx t
e
V

The fx is the fraction of activity that becomes airborne just

after the accident and (1  fx) exp(wxt) is the activity that
enters the containment as a function of time with mixing rate
wx. The fp = (1  CRF) represents the release fraction from coolant
to containment air. The CRF is the coolant retention factor.
Where K is the normalization constant, then the time dependent
source balance equation is given by.

Ac f x Ac 1  f x Ac K

ewx t dt

wx  wx =T
wx  wx =T

The integration over large time (T  10/wx), the normalization

constant K approximately became equal to wx. We also introduced
fp = (1  CRF) release fraction from coolant to containment air by
introducing coolant retention. We have assumed fx as the fraction
of activity immediately became airborne and available as the
source to release into outside air and (1  fx) is the fraction of

activity enters the coolant then from coolant to containment air

as time dependent function given in Eq. (5). The initial surface
activity is ignored.

6. Computational technique
In this work, we have developed a program in-containment ssion product activity (ICFPA) to quantify and study the ssion
product activity behavior inside the containment building under
LOCA. The ow chart of the program is shown in Fig. 3. First, reactor is operated for normal routine for several months, and depletion calculation has been performed. The core inventory has been
estimated by using BURNUP computer program (Mehboob and
Xinrong, 2012b). The BURNUP core inventory estimation has
already been validated and veried with ORIGEN2 computer program (Mehboob et al., 2013).
The program read the input le containing plant data, accident
type, and isotopes input data and runs four loops to compute incontainment activity. The inner most loop (Fig. 3) determine the
function of containment engineering safety features (ESFs) or the
containment ESFs are determined to operate or malfunction at
time interval t. The second loop (Fig. 3) computes coolant and containment activity for ith isotope as function of time when initial
conditions and input data for reactor, and ith isotope is given. In
2nd loop the containment ESFs operation conditions and parameters are implemented at time interval t through loop 1. Then query
for next time step is asked if the answer is yes the 2nd loop (Fig. 3)
continue to compute the coolant and containment activity with
time increment Nt. If the answer is no, then results of ith isotope
are stored in a le 1 and third loop is called for operation. The third
loop (Fig. 3) asks for next isotope and reads the isotope parameters,
and data from input le then whole process is repeated. The program stores the date for all isotopes with time interval ti to tf in le
2 at the end of third loop. The fourth loop (Fig. 3) asks for next accident type if the answer is no, then program is terminated and an
excel le containing computed results is generated.
After release from fuel to coolant, substantial quantities of ssion product may be deposited in the reactor coolant system
(RCS) correspondingly reducing in-containment source term. The
plate out is dominant retention mode in case of LOCA (Lewis,
1988). NUREG-1150 estimates the amount of RCS retention for
variety of accidents for recent PWRs and BWRs. 100% of coolant
release for noble gases has been suggested by NUREG-1150 and
NUREG-1465 (USNRC, 1995). Whereas, NUREG-1150 estimates
the coolant retention for iodine, cesium and low volatile ssion
products as 7090%, 7595% and 9097%, respectively. On the
other hand experimental results from LACE (Rahn et al., 1988;
NORD, 1990), severe fuel damage (SFD) Test (Petti et al., 1989)
and LOFT-FP-2 (Hobbins and McPherson, 1991) has the coolant
retention from 70% to 90% for iodine and for cesium it is ranged
from 60% to 90%. Due to these high retentions, we have suggested
70% coolant retention for iodine and cesium, 80% coolant retention
for semi volatile aerosols and 9098% coolant retention for others.

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K. Mehboob et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 75 (2015) 365376

Table 4. For limiting release of radioactivity into atmosphere, the

performance of containment ESFs is very critical. The release of
radioactivity from a plant is governed by containment leakage rate,
ltration efciency, containment inside pressure and containment
ESFs performance.

Start

Initialization of variables

7. Results and discussion

Read input file

7.1. Core activity (Ac)

BURNUP calculated results

The program ICFPA has four loops as shown in Fig. 3. The computer program ICFPA uses BURNUP computer program (Mehboob
and Xinrong, 2012b) as sub routine program which determines
the activity inside core at the time of initiation of accident. The
BURNUP evaluates the core activity at depletion of fuel for almost
end of fuel cycle (3 years). Table 5 depicts the activity in core at
fuel depletion time along with activities already published in
USNRC (1975) for 1000 MWe reactor. The decay constant and
activity of Xe, Kr, I, Cs, Te, Ba, Sr, Rh and Ru are listed in Table 5.
A close approximation has been found between BURNUP and literature listed activities. The differences may attribute due to the difference in power operation, end of fuel cycle, power history, crosssection libraries and their weighting factors.

Read input file

Accident type and its parameters.

Read input file

Isotope parameters etc.

Computer simulation of coolant

activity at time t+t

7.2. In-containment source term

Computer simulation of containment
activity at time t+t

Parametric ESF
increment

ON

Containment
ESFs operation
ON/OFF

OFF
Yes
Time step
Store Results
in File 1 at t
+t

Yes
Next
Isotope
Store Results in file 2
for ith isotope at att
+t

Yes
Next
Accident

Noble gases deliver whole-body dose and became rapidly airborne in containment. The noble gases have a high tendency to
escape into outer environment even in isolation mode (Mehboob
and Xinrong, 2012b). While, iodine delivers lungs and thyroid dose
and can cause lungs and thyroid cancer. However, the retention of
coolant for iodine is relatively high enough that only 2530%
iodine could escape into containment air. Due to reactive in nature
iodine rapidly converted into CH3I, CH4I and CsI, which could also
reduce airborne iodine. Experimentally, only 57% of release iodine
have been observed in the form of CH3I and CH4I so far during core
damage accidents. While, other ssion products like Te, Cs, Ru, Rh,
and Sr deliver gamma and beta dose contributing in lungs dose and
whole-body dose. These ssion products mostly released in elemental forms and relatively experience high retention by coolant.
Such ssion products easily deposited on core shroud, and coolant
piping. The release fraction from fuel to coolant then coolant to
containment air for noble gases, iodine, cesium, rubidium and
other ssion products are listed in Table 3. Assuming 1050% core
damage the program computes in-containment airborne activity
for variable recirculation rate, mixing rate, spray ow rate at xed
efciency of recirculation lters. The containment inner surfaces
are considered as rough concrete surfaces, the deposition and resuspension rate for various isotopes are shown in Table 3.

No
Print Computed
Results in xls file for
all isotopes for ti to tf

Stop

Fig. 3. Flow chart of in-containment accident ssion product activity (ICFPA)

program.

In addition, as conservative analysis, the fuel release fraction for

various isotopes has been selected from revised assumption in
RG 1.185 (USNRC, 2000). The selected fuel release fraction, coolant
release fraction and coolant retention used in this work is listed in

7.2.1. Volumetric in-containment activity

First, the volumetric activity for typical commercial PWR has
been evaluated for noble gases (Xe, Kr), iodine, cesium, tellurium,
barium and strontium by keeping the normal exhaust and recirculation rate. The recirculation efciency is kept 10% and exhaust lters efciencies are 90% and 98% for charcoal and HIPA lters. We
have assumed 20% of the activity immediately become available
airborne after the accident. The ICFPA program uses the data for
these isotopes as shown in Tables 3 and 4. The activity per unit volume of containment for Kr is shown in Fig. 4. Here we have
assumed 20% of activity become available just after the accident
(fx) due to burst release and rest of activity contributes through
coolant with mixing rate wx = 0.1 s1. It has been observed the
activity in containment rst increases rapidly then decreases exponentially after reaching the maximum values.

371

K. Mehboob et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 75 (2015) 365376

Table 4
Fuel release fraction coolant releaser fraction and coolant retention factor for PWR under LOCA (Saeed et al., 2012; IAEA, 2008; Piskunov, 2009; USNRC, 1995; Papsteafanou,
2008).
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Radionuclides

ff

Noble gases (Xe, Kr)

Iodine
Cesium
Tellurium
Barium
Rutherium and Rubadium
Celerium
Lathanium
Other

fp

1.0
0.9
0.9
0.23
0.01
0.01
0.0001
0.0001
0.0001

CRF (%)

0.95
0.30
0.30
0.20
0.20
0.10.001
0.10.001
0.10.001
0.020.001

05
70
70
80
80
90
90
90
98.8

rs (s1)

ud (m/s)
6

<106
62.3  106
62.3  106
62.3  106
61.5  105
61.5  105
61.5  105
61.5  105
<1.0  105

<10
5.5  104
5.5  104
5.5  104
61.27  103
1.27  103
1.27  103
1.27  103
<103

Table 5
Comparison of results of BURNUP with 1000 MWe reactor.
Nuclide

Kr85
Kr85m
Kr87
Kr88
Kr89
Xe131m
Xe133
Xe133m
Xe135
Xe135m
Xe137
Xe138
I131
I132
I133
I134
I135
Cs134
Cs134m

Decay constant (s1)

2.05E-09
4.30E-05
1.51E-04
6.78E-05
3.64E-03
6.74E-07
1.53E-06
3.66E-06
2.12E-05
7.56E-04
3.02E-03
8.15E-04
9.98E-07
8.37E-05
9.26E-06
2.20E-04
2.91E-05
1.07E-08
6.64E-05

Inventory mass (g)

1.93E+03
1.82E+00
9.73E01
3.07E+00
6.80E02
9.19E+00
7.88E+02
1.05E+01
1.12E+01
3.34E01
3.57E01
1.20E+00
6.12E+02
1.05E+01
1.30E+02
6.01E+00
3.94E+01
1.24E+04
6.07E01

Core inventories (Bq)

This work

USNRC
(1975)

2.80E+16
5.53E+17
1.02E+18
1.43E+18
1.68E+18
2.85E+16
5.45E+18
1.74E+17
1.06E+18
1.13E+18
4.74E+18
4.28E+18
2.81E+18
4.01E+18
5.45E+18
5.93E+18
5.12E+18
5.93E+17
1.81E+17

2.07E+16
8.88E+17
1.74E+18
2.52E+18

6.29E+18

1.26E+18

3.15E+18
4.44E+18
6.29E+18
7.03E+18
5.55E+18
2.78E+17

It is observed that the activity due to 88Kr is dominant and

decreases almost in a linear behavior after attaining the peak value
(Fig. 4). The activity due to 89Kr decreases exponentially after
attaining the maximum peak. The lowest contribution has been
observed from 85Kr. After 300 s of the accidental release, the activity due to Kr isotopes almost reached to its peak values and then
starts decreasing linearly (88Kr, 85mKr) and exponentially (89Kr).
The in containment behavior of xenon activity is depicted in
Fig. 5. It has been observed that the activity due to the 133Xe is
dominant, which increases exponentially as function of time and
decreases almost linearly after approaching the maximum concentration. The minimum contribution has been observed from
131m
Xe. Fig. 5 shows only 137Xe and 138Xe shows exponential
behavior while decrease in their concentration. However, rest of
Xe isotopes decreases almost in a linear approach. The 133Xe activity has been found 4.1  1013 Bq/m3 (Fig. 5) which is almost four
times higher than 88Kr activity (Fig. 4).
ICFPA also quanties the iodine activity in containment air as
function of time by assuming 90% fuel release fraction, and 30%
coolant release fraction with normal exhaust and recirculation
ventilation. Fig. 6 depicts the airborne iodine in containment air
with no spray. High coolant retention has been considered for
iodine as measured in different experiments mentioned above.
The elemental iodine isotopes also have high deposition velocity
of 5.1  1035.5  104 m/s which is almost 1001000 times
greater than noble gases deposition velocity.
In comparison with noble gases, airborne volumetric activity of
elemental iodine found to have similar behavior for all isotopes. It
has been observed, with 90% of fuel release fraction, 30% of coolant

Nuclide

Cs135
Cs135m
Cs136
Cs137
Ba140
Sr89
Sr90
Sr91
Sr92
Ru103
Ru105
Ru106
Rh105
Te127
Te127m
Te129
Te131
Te131m
Te132

Decay constant
(s1)

Inventory mass
(g)

Core inventories (Bq)

This work

USNRC
(1975)

9.55E-15
2.18E-04
6.12E-07
7.32E-10
6.27E-07
1.59E-07
7.54E-10
2.03E-05
7.11E-05
2.04E-07
4.34E-05
2.18E-08
5.45E-06
2.06E-05
7.36E-08
1.66E-04
4.62E-04
6.42E-06
2.46E-06

2.74E+04
1.38E-01
5.98E+01
1.08E+05
1.69E+03
1.80E+03
4.24E+04
1.87E+01
6.10E+00
4.04E+03
1.49E+01
1.75E+04
1.07E+02
3.53E+00
1.34E+02
1.23E+00
1.17E+00
1.42E+01
3.50E+02

1.17E+12
1.34E+17
1.62E+17
3.48E+17
4.56E+18
1.93E+18
2.14E+17
2.50E+18
2.84E+18
4.83E+18
3.70E+18
2.17E+18
3.34E+18
3.44E+17
4.67E+16
9.57E+17
2.48E+18
4.20E+17
3.93E+18

1.11E+17
1.74E+17
5.92E+18
3.48E+18
1.37E+17
4.07E+18

4.07E+18
2.66E+18
9.25E+17
1.81E+18
2.18E+17
4.07E+16
1.15E+18

4.81E+17
4.44E+18

release fraction, 134I has same magnitude as that of 88Kr with 100%
fuel release fraction and 95% coolant release fraction. The peak values of all the isotopes of iodine have been found at 260 s after the
accident. The major contribution to airborne in-containment activity is due to 134I while, the minimum contribution is due to 131I.
The peak value of 134I has been observed 1.115  1013 Bq/m3
(Fig. 6).
For elemental cesium, we have considered the release fractions;
deposition velocities and re-suspension rate similar to that for
iodine. While, the other conditions were kept same as for others
isotopes. The results of cesium isotope are depicted in Fig. 7. The
138
Cs peak activity has been found 10 times higher than 137Cs. All
isotopes gain their peak values at 180 s after the accident with
mixing rate wx = 0.1 s. 138Cs delivers highest contribution to incontainment activity with magnitude of 8.8  1012 Bq/m3 but it
decreases more exponentially compared to other cesium isotopes.
The negligible activity has been observed for 135Cs as compare to
138
Cs (Fig. 7).
The Te, Sr, and Ba isotopes release as ssion fragments and
serve as aerosols in containment air. The kinetic behavior of Te,
Sr, and Ba are shown in Figs. 8 and 9, respectively. 132Te remains
the dominant among other tellurium isotopes with peak value of
1.32  1012 Bq/m3 at peak time of 300 s after the accident
(Fig. 8). On the other hand (Fig. 9) 140Ba peak value is almost twice
of 92Sr with magnitude of 6.12  1010 Bq/m3 while 92Sr has been
observed with maximum contribution to in-containment activity
among Sr isotopes with magnitude of 3.46  1010 Bq/m3. The lowest contribution comes from 90Sr (Fig. 9), and the largest activity is
due to 140Ba as shown in Fig. 8. We also compute in-containment

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K. Mehboob et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 75 (2015) 365376

Fig. 4. In-containment activity (Bq/m3) per unit volume for various isotopes of Kr
with fx = 20% and mixing rate wx = 0.1/s.

Fig. 5. In-containment activity (Bq/m3) per unit volume for various isotopes of Xe
with fx = 20% and mixing rate wx = 0.1/s.

Fig. 6. In-containment activity (Bq/m3) per unit volume for various isotopes of
iodine with fx = 20% and mixing rate wx = 0.1/s.

activity for various isotopes at different simulation parameters,

which are explained blow.
7.2.2. Effect of core damage (fc)
We have studied the effect of core damage fractions on volumetric in-containment activity. Since, in reactor accidents happen
in history 1050% core damage has been reported in commercial

Fig. 7. In-containment activity (Bq/m3) per unit volume for various isotopes of
cesium with fx = 20% and mixing rate wx = 0.1/s.

Fig. 8. In-containment activity (Bq/m3) per unit volume for various isotopes of Te
with fx = 20% and mixing rate wx = 0.1/s.

Fig. 9. In-containment activity (Bq/m3) per unit volume for

isotopes of Sr with fx = 20% and mixing rate wx = 0.1/s.

140

Ba and various

NPPs. A comparison of 137Xe and 87Kr is depicted in Fig. 10 for various values of core damage fraction. The results have been evaluated by keeping the constant recirculation collection efciency of
10% with normal re-circulation (4.179 m3/s) and exhaust rates
(15.6 m3/s). The parameters used for comparison are shown in
Tables 3 and 4. It has been seen from results (Fig. 10) with increase
in core damage fraction the magnitude of peak value of 137Xe
(Fig. 10, left) also increases. The increase in amplitude has been

K. Mehboob et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 75 (2015) 365376

Fig. 10. A comparison of

87

Kr and

137

373

Xe with fraction of core damage with fx = 20%, wx = 0.1/s.

activity due to 87Kr decrease with lower slope but with higher core
damage ratio, it has been seen that the decrease in 87Kr volumetric
activity becomes steeper (Fig. 10, right).

Fig. 11. In-containment activity per unit volume (Bq/m3) for

time (s) for various values of fx (wx = 0.1/s).

137

Xe as function of

Fig. 12. In-containment activity per unit volume (Bq/m3) for 133I as function of time
(s) for various values of recirculation rate (Rr) at wx = 0.01/s.

found exponential rather than linear with a linear increase in core

damage fraction. It has also been observed that even with different
core damage fractions the quantication of airborne in-containment activity of 137Xe became same after 1500 s of the accident
(Fig. 10, left). Contrary to 137Xe, the 87Kr activity decreases drastically almost in a linear approach. For lower core damage ratio, the

7.2.3. Effect of instantaneous release (fx)

The uncontrolled rapture in coolant piping (hot leg or cold leg)
could cause LOCA. With the rapture, there is a burst release generating instantaneous release of radioactivity into containment. We
have simulated the volumetric in-containment activity for various
values of instantaneous release from 10% to 70%. Usually, with the
burst release, only 1020% of activity is released instantaneously
and rest of activity releases through coolant after coolant retention.
The volumetric activity of 138Xe has been computed with ICFPA for
postulated LOCA. This study has been carried out for instantaneous
release from 10% to 70% of activity at the time of initiation of accident. The results are shown in Fig. 11. The results indicate that if
we assume a higher amount of instantaneous release, then activity
in containment decrease exponentially. With the small amount of
instantaneous release (1040%), containment activity rst
increases then starts reducing after approaching to its peak value.
As value of fx reduces it shift the peak towards higher time scale,
and the peak becomes more prominent. It happened because of
competition between fx term in initial condition and (1  fx) term
in source term (Eq. (4)). Therefore, for a more realistic approach,
we have assumed 20% of fx corresponding to burst release in case
of rapture.

7.2.4. Recirculation rate effect on volumetric activity

In this work, we also have computed the volumetric activity due
to 133I in containment air for various recirculation rates with 90%
recirculation efciency. Since, recirculation trains are employed
with charcoal lters with 90% iodine collection efciency. Therefore, we computed the in-containment activity due to 133I with
90% collection efciency and 0.01 s1 mixing rate (wx). The 50%
core damage is employed for loss of coolant accident; fuel release
fraction (ff) is about 90% and water release fraction (fp) is 30%. The
results of in-containment activity are depicted in Fig. 12.
High in-containment activity has been observed with lower
recirculation ow rate, i.e., Rr = 0 m/s. It has also been observed
that when recirculation ow rate is increased not only the magnitude of peak activity is reduced, but it also shifts towards the lower
time scale values (Fig. 12). The peak value remains less than
6.0  1012 Bq/m3 for 0.0 m3/s recirculation rate. For normal recirculation rate (4.0 m3/s), the peak value of 133I is almost
5.7  1012 Bq/m3 and for high recirculation rate (16 m3/s), the peak
value of 133I has been observed 5.1  1012 Bq/m3. Results with

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K. Mehboob et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 75 (2015) 365376

Fig. 13. A comparison of in-containment volumetric activity (Bq/m3) for

89

Kr and

131

I as function of time (s) at various values of wx.

recirculation rate indicating the signicant effect on volumetric

activity.

7.2.5. Effect of mixing rate on iodine and noble gases

The ICFPA computes the airborne activity for delayed core
inventory (1  fx) which enters the containment air after passing
through coolant with mixing rate wx. We have compared the volumetric activity of 89Kr and 131I by varying the values of wx form
0.001 s1 to 1.0 s1. Dramatic results have been seen by varying
the values of wx. A comparison of 89Kr and 131I are shown in
Fig. 13. At xed value of fx = 30% the rest of (1  fx) has been studied for various values of wx. When wx is 1.0 s1, the peak is shifted
towards lower time scale value, and highest magnitude has been
observed. In the situation with wx = 1.0 s1, 89Kr curve decreases
rapidly in exponential behavior (Fig. 13, left). In similar situation,
133
I reduces almost linearly (Fig. 13, right). The peak value decrease
gradually for both 131I and 89Kr when wx is allowed to change from
1.0 s1 to 0.03 s1. The peaks start shifting towards higher time
scale values. A slight dip has been observed in 89Kr volumetric
activity for wx = 0.03 s1 due to intension towards rapid escape of
radioactivity into containment air (Fig. 13, left). Eventually, when
mixing rate is very low (wx = 0.001 s1) the volumetric activity
decrease monotonically since because of negligible mixing and
rapid escape from coolant. However, for mixing rate 0.01 s1 and
0.005 s1 signicant differences have been observed for 89Kr and
131
I. The activity for 89Kr has a tendency towards monotonically
decreasing behavior whereas activity for 131I has been found constant for mixing rate 0.005 s1. The mixing rate highly inuence
the in containment source term. High peak in-containment activity
has been observed with high missing rate as the mixing rate
reduces volumetric in-containment source term signicantly
reduces.

7.2.6. Leakage rate effect

The containment pressure signicantly effects the ssion products quantication. With accident progression the containment
pressure raises resulting increase in leakage rate. Therefore, we
also have computed in-containment volumetric activity of 105Rh
for various values of containment exhaust ltration rates. To study
the effect of volumetric leakage rate on containment activity the
recirculation ltration is ignored, and exhaust rate is allowed to
vary from 0.1 m3/s to 16 m3/s. The mixing rate for 105Rh is taken
as 0.05 s1, deposition velocity and re-suspension rate for 105Rh
are taken as 0.0013 m/s and 0.0015 s1. 50% core damage fraction
has been employed for loss of coolant accident with fuel release

Fig. 14. In-containment volumetric activity (Bq/m3) for 105Rh as function of time (s)
at various values of Lr.

fraction of 0.01 and water release fraction equal to 0.01. The variation in volumetric in-containment activity is depicted in Fig. 14.
It has been seen from results, with the shift of exhaust rate
value from lower values towards higher ventilation rate the incontainment activity of 105Rh monotonically decreases with
decrease in the peak value. The volumetric leakage rate for normal
exhaust rate (15 m3/s) has been observed 0.06 MBq/m3s. While,
shifting the exhaust rate to emergency (5 m3/s) the leakage rate
has been found 27 KBq/m3s. The in-containment activity for
105
Rh has decreased signicantly with decrease in its peak value
corresponding to increase in leakage rate. The in-containment
atmosphere also shows tendency towards purging and cleaning
system. The leakage from exhaust through lters signicantly
reduces the volumetric activity. At higher leakage rate through lters not only reduce the containment pressure but also reduce the
considerable amount of airborne activity.

8. Conclusions
In this work, a time dependent model has been developed for
kinetic study and quantication of in-containment volumetric
activity for various isotopes. For this reason, in-containment ssion
product activity (ICFPA) program has been developed in MATLAB
to study the ssion products activity inside the containment air
of 1000 MWe reactor under loss of coolant accident (LOCA). The

K. Mehboob et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 75 (2015) 365376

decay of isotope, re-suspension, deposition and continuous release

from molten debris as function of time has been employed in
model and implemented in ICFPA program. Kinetic as well as the
quantication of volumetric activity has been computed numerically by using ICFPA program.
The program uses the BURNUP code as the subroutine code
which has been validated by (Mehboob et al., 2013) for the core
inventory calculations. The depletion calculation has been evaluated by BURNUP at the end fuel cycle prior core design in order
to obtain maximum activity at the time of initiation of accident.
The calculated activities and (USNRC, 1975) results are compared
in Table 5. Acceptable approximations have been found. The differences are due to the difference of libraries, fuel end cycle time,
power operation, and operation history. In comparison to historical
accidents and probabilistic inventory, 50% core damage has been
assumed with 2030% instantaneous release (fx) of activity in case
of burst release due to rapture in hot or cold leg. This is a more
realistic approach. The rest of activity (1  fx) enters the containment air as a function of time with mixing rate wx from molten fuel
or debris. Continuous release from the damaged fuel/debris into
coolant then coolant to containment has been taken. The volumetric activity has been studied for various variable values of instantaneous release fx; mixing rate wx; recirculation rates Rr; and leakage
through containment Lr.
The volumetric activity for noble gases (Xe, Kr), iodine, cesium,
tellurium, barium and strontium has been computed by keeping
exhaust and recirculation rate at its normal values. The in-containment source term for these isotopes has also been quantied
respectively. Assuming 20% burst release, with mixing rate of
0.1 s1 the volumetric activity for all the isotopes found to increase
then decrease exponentially or linearly. The maximum contribution of volumetric activity has been found from 88Kr with
1.068  1013 Bq/m3 at 300 s after the accident. The minimum contribution has been observed due to 85Kr which remain less than
2.084  1011 Bq/m3. In-containment volumetric activity for all isotopes of Kr decreases almost linearly except 89Kr. The volumetric
activity for 85Kr isotope attains its peak value with magnitude of
7.5  1012 Bq/m3 in half time (150 s) as compare to other Kr isotopes. The volumetric activity due to 133Xe has been found four
times higher than 88Kr with magnitude of 4.1  1013 Bq/m3 at its
peak value. Whereas, the volumetric activity due to 131mXe
remains less than 2.04  1011 Bq/m3. In comparison to 138Cs the
134
Cs found to be dominant with 10 times higher volumetric activity then 138Cs. However, 134I and has 2.03  1011 Bq/m3 peak volumetric activity and 132Te has 1.32  1011 Bq/m3 volumetric activity
which is almost 4 times gather than the volumetric activity of
131
Te.
It has been found by varying the core damage fraction the peak
values of 137Xe and 87Kr increase with constant amplitude. 137Xe
observed to have same magnitude after 1500 s for all values of
code damage fraction (Fig. 10). The burst release (instantaneously)
is allowed to vary from 10% to 70%. With 10% of instantaneous
release, the in-containment activity rst increases then starts
decreases after reaching maximum concentration. However, when
70% instantaneous release is assumed then only decrease has been
observed in volumetric in-containment activity. This is because of
competition between fx and kinetic source as mentioned in Eq. (4).
Because activity rom source Q(t) enters the containment air as a
function of time with mixing rate wx after passing through coolant.
This delayed source Q(t) is a strong function of xed quantity
(1  fx) and variable wx (mixing rate). The peaks of volumetric
activity shifted towards higher time scale values with decrease in
magnitude (Fig. 13) when wx allowed to decrease. Moreover, recirculation and leakage exhaust rate signicantly reduces in containment volumetric activity. The delayed continuous source of
activity is a strong function of wx and time. Although, the source

375

term is function of time but we have seen from out results and discussion that the in-containment source term is inuence by the
atmosphere inside the containment. The recirculation via recirculation lters signicantly reduces the quantity of airborne activity.
However the leakage from cleaning and purging system affects the
air borne in containment activity in considerable amount. Since,
delayed source Q(t) is function of mixing rate (wx) swaying the volumetric activity. Overall the volumetric activity is signicantly
inclined towards atmosphere inside the containment caused by
recirculation, leakage and mixing rate. The uncertainties in values
of parameters are based on general available data in literature and
are implemented in the model, consequently, to judge the in-containment activity for consequences based on LOCA is limited. However, the developed model is applicable to other systems and also
capable of studying the actinides and activation product activity in
containment air. Moreover, in comparison with Saeed et al. (2012),
a contradiction in behavior of iodine and noble gases with mixing
rate (wx) has been found with factor of 10.
Acknowledgments
This work has been supported by Korea Radiation Safety Foundation under the Project Number 1305030. Mehboob K. acknowledges the support of Khan R. (Center of Excellence in Science and
Applied Technology (CEAST), Pakistan) for computational support.
Mehboob K. also gratefully acknowledge the nancial support of
Prof. Park K. (Department of Nuclear Engineering, College of Engineering, Kyung Hee University, South Korea) in pursing the Post
Doc.
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