Phenomenological Studies on Melt-Structure-Water Interactions (MSWI) during Postulated Severe Accidents

This is the annual report for the work performed in year 2003 in the research project 'Melt-Structure-Water Interactions (MSWI) During Severe Accidents in LWRs', under the auspices of the APRI Project, jointly funded by SKI, HSK, and the Swedish and Finnish power companies. The emphasis of the work was placed on phenomena and parameters, which govern the droplet fragmentation in steam explosions, in-vessel and ex-vessel melt/debris coolability, melt pool convection, and the thermal and mechanical loadings of a pressure vessel during melt-vessel interaction. Most research projects in 2002, such as the COMECO, POMECO and MISTEE programs, were continued. An analysis of the FOREVER experiments using the RELAP code to investigate the melt coolability, bubble dynamics and bubble stability to investigate the dynamic behavior of vapor bubble during steam explosions and associated melt fragmentation, quenching boiling experiment to investigate the thermal behavior of single melt droplet were newly initiated. The SIMECO experiment to investigate the three-layer melt pool convection was restarted. The experimental facilities for these projects were fully functional during year 2003. Many of the investigations performed during the course of the MSWI project have produced papers, which have been published in the proceedings of technical meetings and Journals. Significant technical advances were achieved during the course of these studies. These were: A series of experiments on single drop steam explosions was performed to investigate the fine fragmentation process of a metallic melt drop in various thermal conditions. For the first time, transient fine fragmentation process of a melt drop during explosion phase of a steam explosion was visualized continuously and quantified. Different triggering behavior with respect to the coolant subcooling was observed. The analyses on bubble dynamics during a single drop steam explosion and vapor bubble stability estimated the dynamic pressure generation and associated melt fragmentation. Approximately 70% of a melt drop was fragmented until the second bubble collapses during the steam explosion process. The quenching experiments employing a hot sphere, which dropped into coolant were performed to investigate the thermal behavior, e.g., direct contact boiling heat transfer, film boiling heat transfer etc., of the melt droplet prior to the triggering of steam explosion and consequently to provide the database to develop a theoretical model for the quenching boiling heat transfer. The POMECO experiments revealed the significant additional cooling capability in the debris bed when the control rod guide tubes were used to inject cooling water, showing the enhancement of the dryout heat flux and quenching rates. The COMECO tests showed that the presence of downcomers enhanced the quenching of the molten pool, decreasing the solidification time. Between the top and bottom addition of water, the bottom cooling dominates the cooling process. In the case of cooling with no downcomer, a strong effect of the injected gas velocity on the quenching (solidification) process was obtained. The effect of the downcomer was not as significant as that indicated in the POMECO tests. The SIMECO experiments were restarted to investigate the melt pool convection in multi-layer configuration which has metallic melt layers on the top and bottom and oxidic melt layer in the middle of the melt pool. The experimental results were compared to those from the previous SIMECO experiments with the uniform and two/layer melt pool configuration. The FOREVER-EC6 test in which water was injected on the top of the melt pool during the vessel creep was analyzed to investigate the important heat transfer parameters using the RELAP code. The analysis showed that the melt top and surface heat flux decreases with time due to the crust formation and that it is not possible to quench the melt pool with water flooding from top