RENATA

REactor NAtural circulation Test fAcility (RENATA) consists of a plexiglass cylinder, a stainless steel brick shaped container, piping and measurement instrumentation. The cylinder is placed vertically inside the container. One wall of the container is made of transparent acrylic plastic (thickness 10 mm), so visual observation during the experiments is possible. Other three walls are made of 3 mm thick stainless steel. The base of the of the container is a 930 mm x 970 mm quadrangle. The inner height of the container is 1250 mm. The outflow holes are located on the sides close to the top corners of the container.

Two different cylinders of different sizes can be used with the facility. The outer diameter of the cylinders are 200 mm and 500 mm, respectively. The height of the cylinders is 1000 mm. The wall thickness of the cylinders is 10 mm at the top and 5 mm along the side. The bottoms of the cylinders are open, because those are the inflow parts of the facility. There are eight circular holes along the side of the smaller cylinder. They are placed at the height of 500 mm from the bottom of the cylinder. The diameter of the holes is 32 mm. The bigger cylinder contains 54 holes (diameter also 32 mm) along the coat.

Instrumentation includes temperature measurements with K-type thermocouples. Thermocouples are installed so, that vertical temperature distribution inside the upper part of the cylinder can be measured as a function of time. In addition, coloring agent can be used to visualize temperature stratification of the water inside the cylinder. By using a camera or a video camera test events can be recorded.