Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

Impact of PSI-KIT Nitriding model on hypothetical Spent Fuel Pool accident simulation

  • Received : 2022.12.01
  • Accepted : 2023.04.02
  • Published : 2023.07.25
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

In past years the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI, Switzerland) and the Karlsruhe Institue of Technology (KIT, Germany)) collaborated to develop a model to account for the active role of nitrogen in the air oxidation of a Zircalloy cladding. The "PSI-KIT Nitriding Model for Zirconium based Fuel Cladding" model was implemented at PSI into PSI-MELCOR 1.8.6. In order to make a preliminary evaluation of the effect of the new model on the evolution of full-scale spent fuel pool accidents, one spent fuel pool event was analyzed using the PSI research version of PSI-MELCOR 1.8.6, which includes the nitriding model. To adapt an existing input deck for the calculations, a sensitivity study was conducted to find an optimal nodalization for the analyses. The nitriding model results were compared to those calculated with the MELCOR 1.8.6-PSI without the new nitriding model. The results demonstrate the effect of the nitriding reactions in spent fuel pool accident progression. Moreover, they confirm the impact of ZrN formation during cladding oxidation in air when the oxidation reactions lead to oxygen starvation inside the fuel assemblies. The nitriding reaction led to higher chemical heat generation during the accident and to an earlier failure of the cladding than when the effect of nitrogen reactions was not considered. It should be noted that the nitriding model, as implemented in the PSI version of MELCOR 1.8.6 has not yet been conclusively validated. Thereby the results presented in this paper should be treated as a preliminary demonstration of the capabilities of the model.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

The project was financially supported by the Swiss Federal Nuclear Safety Inspectorate ENSI under contract CTR00321(2017-2021). We thank Sandia National Laboratories and U.S. NRC for support and active collaboration in MELCOR related activities. We thank PSI-KIT Nitriding and PSI Air oxidation model developers Bernd Jackel and Jon Birchley for their in-kind contribution and time spent on the consultation of this work.

References

  1. J. Birchley, L. Fernandez-Moguel, Simulation of air oxidation during a reactor accident sequence: Part 1 - phenomenology and model development, Annals of Nuclear Energy 40 (Issue 1) (February 2012) 163-170, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2011.10.019.
  2. S.G. Durbin, E.R. Lindgren, L. Humphries, Spent Fuel Pool Project Phase II, NUREG/CR-7216, U.S. NRC, Albuquerque, 2016.
  3. M. Steinbruck, F.O. da Silva, M. Grosse, Oxidation of Zircaloy-4 in steam-nitrogen mixtures at 600-1200℃, Journal of Nuclear Materials 490 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2017.04.034, 226-23.
  4. M. Lasserre, V. Peres, M. Pijolat, O. Coindreau, C. Duriez, J.-P. Mardon, Qualitative analysis of zircaloy-4 cladding air degradation in O2-N2 mixtures at high temperatures, Materials and Corrosion 65 (2014) 250-259, https://doi.org/10.1002/maco.201307078.
  5. Sanggil Park, Nitriding and Re-oxidation Behavior of Zircaloy-4 at High Temperatures, Dissertation ETH No. 27146, Zurich, Switzerland, 2020.
  6. S. Park, T. Lind, J. Birchley, M. Steinbruck, Current understanding of high-temperature oxidation phenomena during air ingress scenarios, in: Proceedings of the 10th European Review Meeting on Severe Accident Research, Karlsruhe, Germany, May 16-19, 2022, 2022.
  7. M. Steinbruck, Prototypical experiments relating to air oxidation of Zircaloy-4 at high temperatures, Journal of Nuclear Materials 392 (2009) 531-544, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2009.04.018.
  8. C. Duriez, D. Drouan, G. Pouzadoux, Reaction in air and in nitrogen of preoxidised Zircaloy-4 and M5TM claddings, Journal of Nuclear Materials 441 (2013) 84-95, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2013.04.095.
  9. J. Birchley, B. Jaeckel, First assessment of PSI nitriding model against QUENCH-air experiments, in: Proceedings of the 27th International QUENCH Workshop, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, September, 2022, 2022.
  10. B.S. Jackel, T. Lind, L. Fernandez-Moguel, M. Steinbruck, S. Park, Development of a Computer Code Model for Nitriding and Re-Oxidation of Cladding Materials Under Severe Accident Conditions, International Conference Nuclear Energy For New Europe, Portoroz, Slovenia, 2018.
  11. B.S. Jackel, T. Lind, L. Fernandez-Moguel, M. Steinbruck, S. Park, Application of a Newly Developed Computer Code Model for Nitriding and Re-oxidation of Cladding Materials on Separate Effect Tests and Integral Experiments the 9TH European Review Meeting on Severe Accident Research (ERMSAR2019), March 18-20 2019. Log Number: 024.
  12. T. Haste, J. Birchley, Code Assessment Programme for MELCOR1.8.6, Contribution to HSK 2007 Annual Research and Experience Report - Erfahrungs-Und Forschungsbericht, HSK-AN-6502, 2008. ISSN:1661-2884.
  13. Jonathan Birchley, Bernd Jaeckel, First assessment of PSI nitriding model against QUENCH-air experiments, in: Proceedings, 27th International QUENCH Workshop, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, September, 2022.
  14. E. Beuzet, F. Haurais, C. Bals, O. Coindreau, L. Fernandez-Moguel, A. Vasiliev, S. Park, Cladding oxidation during air ingress. Part II: synthesis of modelling Results, Annals of Nuclear Energy 93 (2016) 18-27, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2015.12.031.
  15. A. Wielenberg, L. Lovasz, P. Pandazis, A. Papukchiev, L. Tiborcz, P.J. Schoffel, C. Spengler, M. Sonnenkalb, A. Schaffrath, Recent improvements in the system code package AC2 2019 for the safety analysis of nuclear reactors, Nuclear Engineering and Design 354 (2019), 110211, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2019.110211.
  16. M.F. Haurais, Evaluate the contribution of the fuel cladding oxidation process on the hydrogen production from the reflooding during a potential severe accident in a nuclear reactor, PhD thesis, l'Universite Paris-Saclay, Ecole Doctorale No 576 (2016).
  17. O. Coindreau, et al., Severe accident code-to-code comparison for two accident scenarios in a spent fuel pool, Annals of Nuclear Energy 120 (October 2018) 880-887, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2018.06.043.
  18. B. Jackel, L. Fernandez-Moguel, S. Park, EMUG Presentation: the Role of Nitrogen in Spent Fuel Pool Accident Scenarios, 7th EMUG, Brussels, Belgium, 2015.
  19. E.T. Hayes, A.H. Roberson, Some effects of heating zirconium in air, oxygen, and nitrogen, Journal of The Electrochemical Society. 96 142 (1949), https://doi.org/10.1149/1.2776778.
  20. Phenomena Identification and Ranking Table, Nuclear Energy Agency, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, 2018. NEA No. 7443.
  21. Kwang IlAhn, Jae UkShin, Won Tae Kim, An assessment of radiological source terms for loss of cooling and coolant accidents of a PWR spent fuel pool, Progress in Nuclear Energy 129 (November 2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2020.103513.
  22. Jonathan C. Birchley, J. Stuckert, M. Steinbrueck, M. Grosse, Preliminary interpretative analysis of the QUENCH-18 bundle test using SCDAPSim/mod3.5, Annals of Nuclear Energy 130 (August 2019) 20-33, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anucene.2019.02.022.
  23. J. Stuckert, M. Steinbruck, Experimental results of the QUENCH-16 bundle test on air ingress, Progress in Nuclear Energy 71 (2014) 134-141, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnucene.2013.12.001.
  24. Juri Stuckert, Steinbrueck Martin, Jarmo Kalilainen, Terttaliisa Lind, Jonathan Birchley, Experimental and modelling results of the QUENCH-18 bundle experiment on air ingress, cladding melting and aerosol release, Nuclear Engineering and Design 379 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2021.111267.
  25. P. Vryashkova, P. Groudev, Improving the results of QUENCH-16 experiment by using new models of MELCOR 2.1, BgNS TRANSACTIONS volume 22 (2017) 26-29, number 1.
  26. Robert Farkas, Zoltan Hozer, Imre Nagy, Nora Ver, Marta Horvath, Steinbruck Martin, Mirco Grosse Effect of steam and oxygen starvation on severe accident progression with air ingress, Nuclear Engineering and Design 396 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2022.111884.