• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제55권11호
• /
• pp.4134-4145
• /
• 2023

This paper proposes strain-based failure model of A533B1 pressure vessel steel to simulate failure, followed by application to OECD lower head failure (OLHF) test simulation for experimental validation. The proposed strain-based failure model uses simple constant and linear functions based on physical failure modes with the critical strain value determined either using the lower bound of true fracture strain or using the average value of total elongation depending on the temperature. Application to OECD Lower Head Failure (OLHF) tests shows that progressive deformation, failure time and failure location can be well predicted.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제32권4호
• /
• pp.410-423
• /
• 2000

A two-dimensional numerical model is developed and applied to the LAVA-EXV tests performed at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) to investigate the external cooling effect on the thermal margin to failure of a reactor pressure vessel (RPV) during a severe accident. The computational program was written to predict the temperature profile of a two-dimensional spherical vessel segment accounting for the conjugate heat transfer mechanisms of conduction through the debris and the vessel, natural convection within the molten debris pool, and the possible ablation of the vessel wall in contact with the high temperature melt. Results of the sensitivity analysis and comparison with the LAVA-EXV test data indicated that the developed computational tool carries a high potential for simulating the thermal behavior of the RPV during a core melt relocation accident. It is concluded that the main factors affecting the RPV failure are the natural convection within the debris pool and the ablation of the metal vessel, The simplistic natural convection model adopted in the computational program partly made up for the absence of the mechanistic momentum consideration in this study. Uncertainties in the prediction will be reduced when the natural convection and ablation phenomena are more rigorously dealt with in the code, and if more accurate initial and time-dependent conditions are supplied from the test in terms of material composition and its associated thermophysical properties.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제50권8호
• /
• pp.1412-1420
• /
• 2018

An experiment was performed using the large-scale test facility (LSTF), which simulated a 1% vessel upper head small-break loss-of-coolant accident with an accident management (AM) measure under an assumption of total-failure of high-pressure injection (HPI) system in a pressurized water reactor (PWR). In the LSTF test, liquid level in the upper head affected break flow rate. Coolant was manually injected from the HPI system into cold legs as the AM measure when the maximum core exit temperature reached 623 K. The cladding surface temperature largely increased due to late and slow response of the core exit thermocouples. The AM measure was confirmed to be effective for the core cooling. The RELAP5/MOD3.3 code indicated insufficient prediction of primary coolant distribution. The author conducted uncertainty analysis for the LSTF test employing created phenomena identification and ranking table for each component. The author clarified that peak cladding temperature was largely dependent on the combination of multiple uncertain parameters within the defined uncertain ranges.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• 제54권8호
• /
• pp.3130-3139
• /
• 2022

Direct containment heating (DCH) is one of the potential factors leading to early containment failure. DCH is closely related to safety analysis and containment performance evaluation of nuclear power plants. In this study, a DCH prediction program was developed to analyze the DCH loads of containment vessel. The phenomenological model of debris dispersal, metal oxidation reaction, debris-atmospheric heat transfer and hydrogen jet burn was established. Code assessment was performed by comparing with several separate effect tests and integral effect tests. The comparison between the predicted results and experimental data shows that the program can predict the key parameters such as peak pressure, temperature, and hydrogen production in containment well, and for most comparisons the relative errors can be maintained within 20%. Among them, the prediction uncertainty of hydrogen production is slightly larger. The analysis shows that the main sources of the error are the difference of time scale and the oxidation of cavity debris.