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Reflood Investigation of Fuel Assemblies Based on Analysis of High-Temperature Integral Experiments

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Atomic Energy Aims and scope

A series of high-temperature experiments with an electrically heated fuel assembly in a steam–argon mixture followed by rapid cooling of the assembly with water or saturated steam is analyzed. The possibility of efficiently cooling a water-heated and water-moderated reactor core, heated to high temperature during a serious accident, by flooding the core with water from the bottom is studied. The oxidation of fuel-element cladding, hydrogen release upon heating and reflooding and heat-transfer processes, characteristic for a serious accident in a reactor and determining the effectiveness of flooding as a measure to control the accident, are analyzed in detail for a single experiment. The analysis is performed using the SOKRAT/V2 software code developed for modeling measures taken to control serious accidents in VVER. Analysis of experiments shows that reflooding the core, heated in a steam medium to temperature not exceeding 2100–2200 K, can be an effective measure to stop catastrophic development of a serious accident at NPP with VVER.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Problems in the Safe Development of Nuclear Energy, Russian Academy of Sciences (IBRAE RAN), Moscow, Russia

    A. D. Vasil’ev & V. I. Romanovskii

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  1. A. D. Vasil’ev
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  2. V. I. Romanovskii
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Translated from Atomnaya Énergiya, Vol. 119, No. 1, pp. 16–23, July, 2015.

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Vasil’ev, A.D., Romanovskii, V.I. Reflood Investigation of Fuel Assemblies Based on Analysis of High-Temperature Integral Experiments. At Energy 119, 15–24 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10512-015-0023-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10512-015-0023-5

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