Droplet evaporation characteristics on high-temperature porous surfaces for cooling fuel debris

Yuki, Kohei*; Horiguchi, Naoki; Yoshida, Hiroyuki; Yuki, Kazuhisa*

Proceedings of 31st International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE31) (Internet), 4 Pages, 2024/11

https://doi.org/10.1115/ICONE31-135281

Fuel debris in the Fukushima Nuclear Power Station is cooled under immersion condition. However, in the event of an unexpected decrease in water level, coolant contacts high-temperature fuel debris having porous structure. In this event, although fuel debris needs to be cooled rapidly, thermal behavior at liquid-solid contact, such as capillary phenomenon, remains unclear. In this paper, as basic research, we evaluate droplet evaporation characteristics after contact with metal porous media with small pores less than 1 mm. In experiment, to obtain life time curve of a droplet, bronze or stainless steel porous media having 1, 40, or 100 m pore diameter are utilized. Experimental results show that Leidenfrost phenomenon is suppressed on the porous surfaces because generated vapor can be discharged from the pores. Further, for bronze porous media, capillary phenomenon is observed as the temperature of the porous media increase because of generation of oxide film having fine structure. On the other hand, due to low wettability of stainless steel porous media, capillary phenomenon does not occur, and the droplet was not sucked and spread into pore. This indicates that rapid cooling by the capillary phenomenon can not be expected if fuel debris has the same characteristics as the stainless steel porous media.

Criticality safety evaluation of high active liquid waste during the evaporation to dryness process at Tokai Reprocessing Plant

Miura, Takatomo; Kudo, Atsunari; Koyama, Daisuke; Obu, Tomoyuki; Samoto, Hirotaka

Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Nuclear Criticality Safety (ICNC2023) (Internet), 10 Pages, 2023/10

Tokai Reprocessing Plant (TRP) had reprocessed 1,140 tons of spent fuel discharged from commercial reactors (BWR, PWR) and Advanced Thermal Reactor "Fugen" from 1977 to 2007. TRP had entered decommissioning stage in 2018. In order to reduce the risk of High Active Liquid Waste (HALW) held at the facility, the vitrification of HALW is given top priority. HALW generated from reprocessing of spent fuel contains not only fission products (FPs) but also trace amounts of uranium (U) and plutonium (Pu) within the liquid and insoluble residues (sludge). Under normal conditions, concentrations of U and Pu in HALW are very low so that it can not reach criticality. Since FPs with high neutron absorption effect coexists in HALW, even if the cooling function is lost due to serious accident and HALW evaporates to dryness, it is considered that criticality would not been reached. In order to confirm this estimation quantitatively, criticality safety evaluations were carried out for the increase of U and Pu concentrations by evaporation of HALW to the point of dryness. In this evaluation, infinite multiplication factors were calculated for each of solution system and sludge system of HALW with respect to the concentration change through evaporation to dryness. It is confirmed it could not reach criticality. The abundance ratios of U, Pu and FPs were set conservatively based on analytical data and ORIGEN calculation results. Multiplation factors for two-layer infinite slab model of solution and sludge systems of HALW were also calculated, and it was confirmed it could not reached criticality. In conclusion, the result was gaind that there could be no criticality even in the process through evaporation to dryness of HALW in TRP.

Development of simulation program; SHAWED for analysis of accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of reprocessed high level liquid waste in tank

Yoshida, Kazuo; Tamaki, Hitoshi; Hiyama, Mina*

JAEA-Research 2022-011, 37 Pages, 2022/12

JAEA-Research-2022-011.pdf:2.88MB

An accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of high level liquid waste (HLLW) is postulated as one of the severe accidents at a fuel reprocessing plant. Two major mechanisms are expected for fission products (FPs) transfer from liquid to vapor phase. One is non-volatiles FPs transfer in the form of mists to the vapor phase in the tank, the other is volatilization of such as Ruthenium. These FPs transferred to the vapor phase in the tank could be released with water and nitric-acid mixed steam and NO gas flow to the environment. NO is generated from denitration of nitrate fission products during dry out phase. These phenomena occurred in this accident originate from the liquid waste boiling in the tank. It is essential for the risk assessment of this accident to simulate thermo-hydraulic and chemical behaviors in the waste tank quantitatively with a versatile computer program. The SHAWED (imulation of igh-level radioctive aste vaporation and ryness) has been developed to realize these requirements. In this report, detailed description of major analytical models is explained based on the features of this accident, and some simulation examples are also described for the use in an actual risk assessment.

Analysis of risk reduction effect of supposed steam condenser implementation as accident measure for accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of reprocessed high level liquid waste

Yoshida, Kazuo; Tamaki, Hitoshi; Hiyama, Mina*

JAEA-Research 2021-013, 20 Pages, 2022/01

JAEA-Research-2021-013.pdf:2.35MB

An accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of high level liquid waste (HLLW) is postulated as one of the severe accidents caused by the loss of cooling function at a fuel reprocessing plant. In this case, volatile radioactive materials, such as ruthenium (Ru) are released from the tanks with water and nitric-acid mixed vapor into atmosphere. An idea has been proposed to implement a steam condenser as an accident countermeasure. This measure is expected to prevent nitric acid steam diffusing in facility building and to increase gaseous Ru trapping ratio into condensed water. A simulation study has been carried out with a hypothetical typical facility building to analyze the efficiency of steam condenser. In this study, SCHERN computer code simulates chemical behaviors of Ru in nitrogen oxide, nitric acid and water mixed vapor based on the conditions obtained from simulation with thermal-hydraulic computer code MELCOR. The effectiveness of steam condenser has been analyzed quantitively in preventing mixed vapor diffusion and gaseous Ru trapping effect. Some issues to be solved in analytical model has been also clarified in this study.

SCHERN-V2: Technical guide of computer program for chemical behavior in accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of reprocessed high level liquid waste in Fuel Reprocessing Facilities

Yoshida, Kazuo; Tamaki, Hitoshi; Hiyama, Mina*

JAEA-Data/Code 2021-008, 35 Pages, 2021/08

JAEA-Data-Code-2021-008.pdf:3.68MB

An accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of high level liquid waste (HLLW) is postulated as one of the severe accidents caused by the loss of cooling function at a fuel reprocessing plant. In this case, volatile radioactive materials, such as ruthenium (Ru) are released from the tanks with water and nitric-acid mixed vapor into atmosphere. In addition to this, nitrogen oxides (NO) are also released formed by the thermal decomposition of metal nitrates of fission products (FP) in HLLW. It has been observed experimentally that NOx affects to the migration behavior of Ru at the anticipated atmosphere condition in cells and/or compartments of the facility building. Chemical reactions of NO with water and nitric acid are also recognized as the complex phenomena to undergo simultaneously in the vapor and liquid phases. The analysis program, SCHERN has been under developed to simulate chemical behavior including Ru coupled with the thermo-hydraulic condition in the flow paths in the facility building. This technical guide for SCHERN-V2 presents the overview of covered accident, analytical models including newly developed models, differential equations for numerical solution, and user instructions.

Development of correlation of gaseous ruthenium transfer rate to condensed water in accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of reprocessed high level liquid waste in Fuel Reprocessing Facilities

Yoshida, Kazuo; Tamaki, Hitoshi; Yoshida, Naoki; Amano, Yuki; Abe, Hitoshi

JAEA-Research 2017-015, 18 Pages, 2018/01

JAEA-Research-2017-015.pdf:3.08MB

An accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of high level liquid waste is postulated as one of the severe accidents at a fuel reprocessing facility. It was observed at the experiments that a large amount of ruthenium (Ru) is volatilized and transfer to the vapor phase in the tank. The nitric acid and water mixed vapor released from the tank is condensed. Volatilized Ru is expected to transfer into the condensed water at the compartments in the building. Quantitative estimation of the amount of Ru transferred condensed water is key issues to evaluate the reduction the amount of Ru through leak path in the facility building. This report presents that a correlation has been developed for Ru transfer rate to condensed water with vapor condensing rate based on the experimental results and additional thermal-hydraulic simulation of the experiments. Applicability of the correlation has been also demonstrated with the accident simulation of typical facilities in full-scale.

Accident analysis of evaporation to dryness by boiling of reprocessed high level liquid waste at fuel reprocessing facilities with considering severe accident measures

Yoshida, Kazuo

JAEA-Research 2016-004, 15 Pages, 2016/06

JAEA-Research-2016-004.pdf:2.22MB

An accident of evaporation to dryness by boiling of high level liquid waste is postulated as one of the severe accidents caused by the loss of cooling function at a fuel reprocessing plant. In this case, some amount of fission products (FPs) will be transferred to the vapor phase in the tank, and could be released to the environment. Two mitigative accident measures have been proposed by the licensee. One of them is injecting cold water to waste tanks to prevent dryness and another is leading generated vapor through temporary duct to huge spaces in the facility to condense to liquid. Thermal-hydraulics and aerosol transport behaviors in compartments of a typical facility building have been analyzed based on the scenario with these accident measures. The effects of measures are discussed form a view point of the reduction of radioactive material release to environment.

Experimental investigation of lead-bismuth evaporation behavior

Ohno, Shuji*; Miyahara, Shinya*; Kurata, Yuji

Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology, 42(7), p.593 - 599, 2005/07

https://doi.org/10.3327/jnst.42.593

no abstracts in English

Structure evolution and corresponding electrical properties in weakly bound Co-C60 mixture

Sakai, Seiji; Naramoto, Hiroshi; Xu, Y.; Priyanto, T. H.; Lavrentiev, V.; Narumi, Kazumasa

Materials Research Society Symposium Proceedings, Vol.788, p.L11.49.1 - L11.49.6, 2004/00

https://doi.org/10.1557/PROC-788-L11.49

Mixture films between cobalt and C (CoxC, x = 0.5-700) were prepared by co-evaporation technique under UHV conditions. The composition-dependent features of dilatation and downshift of Raman peak suggest that the mixtures are composed of cobalt particles and a C-based phase in which certain number of cobalt atoms are coordinated with C molecules. It is deduced that the equilibrated number of cobalt atoms in the C-based phase is 4 atoms per C molecule and in which an electron transfer occurs from a cobalt atom to a C molecule. The evaluation of their temperature dependences reveals that: (1) The mixtures with x 4 are thermally activated-type, and their conductive nature can be attributed to the C-based phase. Further (2) the mixtures between 4 x 60 are also thermally activated, however, the electron hopping process between the isolated cobalt particles is supposed to be operative (variable-range-hopping). And (3) in the mixtures with x 60 which corresponds to a percolation threshold for cobalt particles, the system changes into metallic conduction.

Study on the stability of AmN and (Am,Zr)N

Takano, Masahide; Ito, Akinori; Akabori, Mitsuo; Minato, Kazuo; Numata, Masami

Proceedings of GLOBAL2003 Atoms for Prosperity; Updating Eisenhower's Global Vision for Nuclear Energy (CD-ROM), p.2285 - 2291, 2003/00

Stability of AmN and (Am,Zr)N was studied comparatively from the viewpoints of the hydrolytic and evaporative behavior. AmN powder reacted with moisture to form hydroxide Am(OH), while the solid solution (AmZr)N remained stable as long as 1000 hours. Stabilization effect of ZrN was found to depend significantly on its mole fraction from the experiments on (Dy,Zr)N. In the oxidation experiments on (Dy,Zr)N by TG-DTA technique, rapid weight gain by the oxidation occurred above 700 K. Effect of ZrN on the stability against oxygen was slight. Nitrogen release by the evaporation of AmN and (AmZr)N in He gas flow was measured by gas chromatography. Evaporation rate constants of AmN were obtained at 1623-1733 K. Although the evaporation rate constant of AmN in the solid solution were lower than those of the pure AmN, the selective evaporation of AmN from the solid slution were recognized, which resulted in a decrease in the Am mole fraction.