A Strategy for the application of steam explosion codes to reactor analysis

Moriyama, Kiyofumi; Nakamura, Hideo  

The steam explosion is one of the phenomena that may threat theintegrity of containment vessel during severe accidents of light waterreactors (LWRs), and has been drawing attention in the field of nuclear safety as well as in many other industrial fields for decades. We developed a code, JASMINE, for the assessment of steam explosion impacts on the LWR safety, and applied the code for simulation of steam explosion experiments and also reactor scale parametric studies. Based on the analytical experiences with JASMINE code and aconsideration on the inter-relation among various fundamental aspects in the steam explosion process, we developed a technical view on aproper application of mechanistic steam explosion analysis codes for plant analysis.