The Response Technical Tools software was developed to make the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Response Technical Manual (RTM) into a software application. The RTM is a publicly available document, which provides a user/reader with a prediction as to the status of a nuclear reactor during a severe accident. The RTM is based on previous experiments and experience with severe accident phenomena. In particular, this work used section A of the RTM devoted to an assessment of core damage. The RTM is intended for use during a severe accident. The goal of this code is to automate the simple, yet very time consuming, calculations that are necessary to evaluate the status of a reactor during accident. This allows an analyst to spend more time making an evaluation as to the status of the plant and not performing simple calculations.

All calculations performed within the RTT code are based off of those detailed in the RTM. Among the important plant status calculations, are the following:

• Project the status of core and extent of core damage
• Predict time of core dryout
• Possibility of a H2 explosion
• Determine whether or not the core can be cooled

The inputs for all of these calculations would be provided to the code user by the operator of a reactor undergoing a severe accident.

A full copy of the Response Technical Manual, the NRC’s severe accident response manual, can be found on the following website. The full manual is under publicly available. http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/brochures/br0150/

Response Technical Tools User Guide View

SAND2018-6848 W