Research on LWR fuel behavior under accident conditions

Yamato, Masaaki; Sugiyama, Tomoyuki ; Nagase, Fumihisa 

To confirm the reactor safety design, safety reviews are performed under accident conditions as well as under normal operation conditions. One of such Design Basis Accidents is the Loss-of-Coolant Accident (LOCA) in which the reactor coolant water is lost typically due to a pipe break. This presentation shows the concept of the current LOCA safety regulation, and presents the results from the recently started experiments on mechanical properties of post-LOCA cladding, breakaway phenomenon in cladding high temperature oxidation, and influence of sea water on the cladding high temperature oxidation.