Visual investigation of transient fuel behavior under a rapid heating condition

An in-reactor experimental research on fuel behavior under reactivity initiated accident (RIA) conditions is being conducted in the Nuclear Safety Research Reactor (NSRR). The optical system in which a non-browning lens periscope is directly installed in the test section was successfully developed for photographing transient fuel behavior. Several phenomena which had never been revealed before were observed in the slow motion pictures taken in the NSRR experiments which were performed in the water and air environments. As for incipient failure mechanism for an unirradiated fuel rod under RIA conditions, brittle fracture of the cladding during quenching is dominant. However, a split cracking possibly occurs during even red hot state of the cladding. It is considered that the crack is generated by the local internal pressure increase at the specified region blocked up due to the melting of the cladding inner surface. The film boiling is unexpectablly violent specially in the early stage of the transient, and film thickness becomes 5 -- 6 mm at maximum. The observed thick vapor film can not be explained by the conventional theory, but the effect of hydrogen which is produced by Zircaloy-water reaction is reasonably explained to form thick film in the report. The molten fuel was expelled from the cladding in the experiment which was performed in an air environment. The expelled fuel fragmented due to possibly initial motion effect, not mechanical collision effect, because Weber number is smaller than the critical value. (author)