Development of assessment method for a self-leveling behavior of debris bed and analyses of experiments

Tagami, Hirotaka ; Cheng, S.; Tobita, Yoshiharu; Guo, L.*; Zhang, B.*; Morita, Koji*

The object of this study is to develop new analytical methods to simulate unique phenomena in self-leveling behavior and implement it to SFR safety analysis code. The new methods are developed with assuming that the debris bed behaves as Bingham fluid from this feature. They are categorized into two main parts. The first part is particle interaction models to model the effect of particle-particle collisions. The second part is a large deformation method, which simulates Bingham fluid characteristic of debris bed. An experimental study of self-leveling behavior is analyzed to validate the new methods. The assessment results show that these methods provide a basis to develop analytical methods of self-leveling behavior of debris bed in the safety assessment of SFRs.