A development of a transient hydrogen generation model for metal-water interactions

A transient model for hydrogen generation in molten metal-water interactions was developed with separate models for two stages of coarse mixing and stratification. The model solves the mechanistic equations (heat and mass transfer correlation, heat conduction equation and the concentration diffusion equation) of each stage with non-zero boundary conditions. Using this model, numerical simulations were performed for single droplet experiments in the Argonne National Laboratory tests and for FITS tests that simulated dynamic fragmentation and stratification. The calculation results of hydrogen generation showed better agreement to the experiment data than those of previous works. it was found from the analyses that the steam concentration to be reached at the reaction front might be the main constraint to the extent of the the metal droplet oxidized. Also, the hydrogen generation rate in the coarse mixing stage was the higher than that in the stratification stage. The particle size was the most important factor in the coarse mixing stage to predict the amount of hydrogen generation. (author)