• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.180-189
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• 2023

We measured the heat load to a reactor vessel with and without the in-vessel debris bed under an IVR-ERVC condition. Mass transfer methodology was adopted based on heat and mass transfer analogy to achieve high Ra'_H of order ~10¹⁵ with compact test rigs. We postulated the in-vessel debris bed has a flat top and particulate debris was simulated as an identical diameter spheres. We conducted experiments varying the height of the debris bed and the results showed that Nusselt numbers decreased in both uppermost and curved surfaces with the increasing bed height. Once the debris bed is formed, it acts as an obstacle to the natural convective flow, which reduces the buoyancy. The reduction of driving force results in the impaired heat transfer in both upward and downward heat transfers.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.36-43
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• 2023

Lots of researches have been conducted on in-vessel retention (IVR) to prevent or mitigate severe accident in nuclear power plants. Various methodologies were proposed and the external reactor vessel cooling was selected as a part of promising IVR strategy. In this study, the strategy is strengthened by enhancing the natural circulation performance through the adoption of insulation in the reactor cavity. A thermal analysis was carried out based on an assumed accident scenario and its results were used as boundary conditions for subsequent seven flow analysis cases. By comparing the natural circulation performance, effects of annular gaps and insulation shapes on the mass flow rate and flow velocity were quantified. The improvement in cooling performance can be reflected in actual design via detailed assessment.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.1330-1337
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• 2016

A visualization test of the fuel-coolant interaction in the Test for Real cOrium Interaction with water (TROI) test facility was carried out. To experimentally simulate the In-Vessel corium Retention (IVR)- External Reactor Vessel Cooling (ERVC) conditions, prototypic corium was released directly into the coolant water without a free fall in a gas phase before making contact with the coolant. Corium (34.39 kg) consisting of uranium oxide and zirconium oxide with a weight ratio of 8:2 was superheated, and 22.54 kg of the 34.39 kg corium was passed through water contained in a transparent interaction vessel. An image of the corium jet behavior in the coolant was taken by a high-speed camera every millisecond. Thermocouple junctions installed in the vertical direction of the coolant were cut sequentially by the falling corium jet. It was clearly observed that the visualization image of the corium jet taken during the fuel-coolant interaction corresponded with the temperature variations in the direction of the falling melt. The corium penetrated through the coolant, and the jet leading edge velocity was 2.0 m/s. Debris smaller than 1 mm was 15% of the total weight of the debris collected after a fuel-coolant interaction test, and the mass median diameter was 2.9 mm.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.8
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• pp.3017-3029
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• 2023

In the late in-vessel phase of a nuclear reactor severe accident, the internal heat transfer and crust evolution during the debris bed melting process have important effects on the thermal load distribution along the vessel wall, and further affect the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) failure mode and the state of melt during leakage. This study coupled the phase change model and large eddy simulation to investigate the variations of the temperature, melt liquid fraction, crust and heat flux distributions during the debris bed melting process in the hypothetical severe accident of HPR1000. The results indicated that the heat flow towards the vessel wall and upper surface were similar at the beginning stage of debris melting, but the upward heat flow increased significantly as the development of the molten pool. The maximum heat flux towards the vessel wall reached 0.4 MW/m². The thickness of lower crust decreased as the debris melting. It was much thicker at the bottom region with the azimuthal angle below 20° and decreased rapidly at the azimuthal angle around 20-50°. The maximum and minimum thicknesses were 2 and 90 mm, respectively. By contrast, the distribution of upper crust was uniform and reached stable state much earlier than the lower crust, with the thickness of about 10 mm. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis of initial condition indicated that as the decrease of time interval from reactor scram to debris bed dried-out, the maximum debris temperature and melt fraction became larger, the lower crust thickness became thinner, but the upper crust had no significant change. The sensitivity analysis of in-vessel retention (IVR) strategies indicated that the passive and active external reactor vessel cooling (ERVC) had little effect on the internal heat transfer and crust evolution. In the case not considering the internal reactor vessel cooling (IRVC), the upper crust was not obvious.