25th International QUENCH Workshop : 22-24 October 2019, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

An important accident management measure for controlling severe accident transients in light water reactors (LWRs) is the injection of water to cool the degrading core. Flooding of the overheated core, which causes quenching of the fuel rods, is considered a potential worst-case scenario regarding hydrogen generation rates which should not exceed safety-relevant critical values. Before the water succeeds in cooling the uncovered core, there can be an enhanced oxidation of the Zircaloy cladding that in turn causes a sharp increase in temperature, hydrogen production, and fission product release. The investigation of the complex physico-chemical processes during quenching and the mutual interaction of materials used in nuclear fuel elements are the main objectives of the QUENCH program at KIT.

During the QUENCH Workshop recent experimental and modeling results on reflood, high-temperature materials oxidation and interactions as well as related problems were presented and discussed. Results of the last bundle experiment QUENCH-20 were given. A special session was organized for the 25. anniversary workshop presenting the main outcome of the QUENCH program. ... mehrOne session dealt with modeling and code applications to integral QUENCH tests. Moreover, the focus of the workshop was on recent results on high-temperature oxidation and Accident Tolerant Fuel (ATF) claddings.

More than 60 participants from 15 countries participated in the workshop. The proceedings contain the agenda, list of participants, abstracts, presentations as well as a collection of photos taken during the workshop.