Transient Simulations of Concrete Ablation due to a Release of Molten Core Material

방출된 노심용융 물질에 의한 콘크리트 침식 천이 모의

  • 김환열 (한국원자력연구원 열수력안전연구센터) ;
  • 박종화 (한국원자력연구원 열수력안전연구센터) ;
  • 김희동 (한국원자력연구원 열수력안전연구센터) ;
  • 홍성완 (한국원자력연구원 열수력안전연구센터)
  • Published : 2007.05.30

Abstract

If a molten core is released from a reactor vessel into a reactor cavity during a severe accident, an important safety issue of coolability of the molten core from top-flooding and concrete ablation due to a molten core concrete interaction (MCCI) is still unresolved. The released molten core debris would attack the concrete wall and basemat of the reactor cavity, which will lead to inevitable concrete decompositions and possible radiological releases. In a OECD/MCCI project scheduled for 4 years from 2002. 1 to 2005. 12, a series of tests were performed to secure the data for cooling the molten core spread out at the reactor cavity and for the 2-D long-term core concrete interaction (CCI). The tests included not only separate effect tests such as a melt eruption, water ingression, and crust failure tests with a prototypic material but also 2-D CCI tests with a prototypic material under dry and flooded cavity conditions. The paper deals with the transient simulations on the CCI-2 test by using a severe accident analysis code, CORQUENCH, which was developed at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). Similar simulations had been already per for me d by using MELCOR 1.8.5 code. Unlike the MELCOR 1.8.5, the CORQUENCH includes a melt eruption mode I and a newly developed water ingression model based on the water ingression tests under the OECD/MCCI project. In order to adjust the geometrical differences between the CCI-2 test (rectangular geometry) and the simulations (cylindrical geometry), the same scaling methodology as used in the MELCOR simulation was applied. For the direct comparison of the simulation results, the same inputs for the MELCOR simulation were used. The simulation results were compared with the previous results by using MELCOR 1.8.5.

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