The Department of Energy and the Idaho National Laboratory are developing a Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP), Very High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (VHTR) to serve as a demonstration of state-of-the-art nuclear technology. The purpose of the demonstration is two fold (1) efficient low cost energy generation and (2) hydrogen production. Although a next generation plant could be developed as a single-purpose facility, early designs are expected to be dual-purpose. While hydrogen production and advanced energy cycles are still in its early stages of development, research towards coupling a high temperature reactor, electrical generation and hydrogen production is under way. A combined cycle is considered as one of the power conversion units to be coupled to the very high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (VHTR). The combined cycle configuration consists of a Brayton top cycle coupled to a Rankine bottoming cycle by means of a steam generator. A detailed sizing and pressure drop model of a steam generator is not available in the HYSYS processes code. Therefore a four region model was developed for implementation into HYSYS. The focus of this study was the validation of a HYSYS steam generator model of two phase flow correlations. The correlations calculated the size and heat exchange of the steam generator. To assess the model, those calculations were input into a RELAP5 model and its results were compared with HYSYS results. The comparison showed many differences in parameters such as the heat transfer coefficients and revealed the different methods used by the codes. Despite differences in approach, the overall results of heat transfer were in good agreement.
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