Study on relocation behavior of debris bed by improved bottom gas-injection experimental method

During the core disruptive accident (CDA) of sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), the molten fuel and steel are solidified into debris particles, which form debris bed in the lower plenum. When the boiling occurs inside debris bed, the flow of coolant and vapor makes the debris particles relocated and the bed flattened, which called debris bed relocation. Because the thickness of debris bed has great influence on the cooling ability of fuel debris in low plenum, it's very necessary to evaluate the transient changes of the shape and thickness in relocation behavior for CDA simulation analysis. To simulate relocation behavior, a large number of debris bed relocation experiments were carried out by improved bottom gas-injection experimental method in this paper. The effects of different experimental factors on the relocation process were studied from the experiments. The experimental data were also used to further evaluate a semi empirical onset model for predicting relocation. (c) 2020 Korean Nuclear Society, Published by Elsevier Korea LLC. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This paper conducted numerous experiments to study the debris bed relocation behavior and investigated the influence of different experimental factors on the process. The experimental data were used to further evaluate a semi-empirical onset model for predicting relocation, providing important references for CDA simulation analysis.