Study on heat transfer behavior of a rectangular particle bed with volumetric heating

Wen, J.*; Kamada, Yuto*; Yokoyama, Kosei*; Matsumoto, Tatsuya*; Liu, W.*; Morita, Koji*; Imaizumi, Yuya ; Tagami, Hirotaka ; Matsuba, Kenichi  ; Kamiyama, Kenji  

To investigate the coolability of fuel debris bed immersed in molten steel, a rectangular experimental system was built in which the particle bed was volumetrically heated via direct current heating. The experimental apparatus consists of a particle bed immersed in water and a water pool above it, which simulate disrupted solid fuel and molten steel, respectively. Computer code simulations with reactor safety analysis code SIMMER-IV were performed to help understanding the heat transfer characteristics and to validate the applicability of the newly embedded momentum exchange function (MXF) models. Under the current experimental conditions, some key parameters like the particle bed average temperature, water pool average temperature, and temperature difference between the bed and the pool were evaluated to compare with the simulation results. The comparison results showed the most applicable MXF model under the current experimental conditions, and the analysis with it well reproduced the phenomena which was observed in the experiments.