An Experimental Study on Effect of External Vessel Cooling for the Penetration Integrity in the KNGR during a Severe Accident

중대사고 시 차세대 원전 관통부의 건전성에 대한 원자로 용기 외벽 냉각의 영향 평가 실험 연구

An experimental study on penetration integrity of the reactor vessel has been performed under external vessel cooling during a core melt accident. In this study a series of experiments are performed for the verification of the effects of coolant in the annulus between the ICI(In-Core Instrumentation) nozzle and the thimble tube and also the effects of external vessel cooling on the integrity of the penetration using the test section including only one penetration and $Al_{2}O_{3}$ melt as a corium simulant. The experimental results have shown that penetration is more damaged in the case of no external vessel cooling compared with the case of external vessel cooling. It is preliminarily concluded that the external vessel cooling is very effective measure for the improvement of the penetration integrity. Also it is confirmed from the experimental results that the coolant in the annulus reduces the melt penetration distance through the annulus and enhance the integrity of the reactor vessel penetration in the end.