Thermophysical properties of austenitic stainless steel containing boron carbide in a solid state

Takai, Toshihide  ; Furukawa, Tomohiro  ; Yamano, Hidemasa   

In a core disruptive accident scenario, boron carbide, which is used as a control rod material, may melt below the melting temperature of stainless steel owing to the eutectic reaction with them. The eutectic mixture produced is assumed to extensively relocate in the degraded core, and this behavior plays an important role in significantly reducing the neutronic reactivity. However, these behaviors have never been simulated in previous severe accident analysis. To contribute to the improvement of the core disruptive accident analysis code, the thermophysical properties of the eutectic mixture in the solid state were measured, and regression equations that show the temperature (and boron carbide concentration) dependence are created.