The technology of passive safety is the current trend among safety systems in nuclear power plant. Passive residual heat removal system (PRHRS), a major part of passive safety systems of Chinese advanced PWR, is a novel design with three-fold natural circulation. On the basis of reasonable physics and mathematics models, MITAP-PRHRS code was developed to analyze steady and transient characteristics of the PRHRS. The calculation and analysis show that the code simulates steady characteristics of the PRHRS very well, and it is able to simulate transient characteristics of all startup modes of the PRHRS. However, the quantitative description is poor during the initial stages of the transition process when water hammer occurs.