Recently, nuclear power safety draws more attention after Fukushima nuclear accident, for which it is essential to construct a large number of test facilities simulating possible issues occurred in the reactor. The thermal-hydraulic test facility is extensively used to simulate thermal-hydraulic response during a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) or an operational transient which can minimize the nuclear safety accidents. This paper focus on the research of thermal-hydraulic test facilities of PWRs in different countries. All of facilities were designed by scaling analysis method. Meanwhile, a wide range of data comprising of power data, pressure data, volume data, configuration and a series of nuclear safety test data is compared in over ten test facilities. Based on above comparable data and relevant research, the main conclusions are as follows:
Scaling analysis lays a solid foundation for the design and construction of scale-down nuclear reactor thermal-hydraulic test facilities. This would provide the reference for choosing scaling concepts in the reactor integral test facility.