Two-phase flow measurements in a simulated debris bed

Ito, Daisuke*; Rivera, M. N.*; Saito, Yasushi*; Aoyagi, Mitsuhiro ; Kamiyama, Kenji  ; Suzuki, Toru*

Two-phase flow through porous media must be well understood to develop a severe accident analysis code not only for light water reactor (LWR) but also sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR). When a core disruptive accident occurs in SFR, the fuel inside the core become melted and interacts with the coolant. As a result, gas-liquid two-phase flow will be formed in the debris bed, which may have porous nature depending on the cooling process. Thus, as first step, the present work focuses on the characteristics of pressure drop in two-phase flows in different porous media conditions (porous size, liquid and gas flow velocity). To construct an experimental database, the measured pressure drop under different conditions was compared with existing correlations. In addition, X-ray radiography, which is very helpful to understand the two-phase structure inside the porous media, was applied to measure porosity and void fraction distribution in the packed bed of spheres.