An Experimental study on heat transfer from a mixture of solid-fuel and liquid-steel during core disruptive accidents in Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactors

神山 健司; 小西 賢介; 佐藤 一憲; 豊岡 淳一; 松場 賢一; 鈴木 徹; 飛田 吉春; Pakhnits, A. V.*; Vityuk, V. A.*; Vurim, A. D.*; et al.

Proceedings of 10th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics, Operation and Safety (NUTHOS-10) (USB Flash Drive), 8 Pages, 2014/12

The relocation of degraded core material through the Control Rod Guide Tubes (CRGTs) is one of essential subjects to achieve the in-vessel retention (IVR) in the case of postulated core disruptive accidents (CDAs) of sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs). The CRGT is available as the discharge path by its failure in the core region and heat-transfer from the core-material to the CRGT is one of dominant factors in its failure. In case of a core design into which a fuel subassembly with an inner duct structure (FAIDUS) is introduced, a mixture of solid-fuel and liquid-steel is supposed to remain in the core region since the FAIDUS could effectively eliminate fuel in liquid-state from the core region. Therefore, the objective of the present study is to obtain experimental knowledge for the evaluation of heat-transfer from the mixture of solid-fuel and liquid-steel to the CRGT. In the present study, an experiment was conducted using Impulse Graphite Reactor which is an experimental facility in National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In the experiment, the mixture of solid-fuel and liquid-steel was generated by a low-power nuclear heating of fuel and transferring its heat to steel, and then, data to consider the heat-transfer characteristics from the mixture of solid-fuel and liquid-steel to the CRGT were obtained. The heat-transfer characteristic was revealed by evaluating thermocouple responses observed in the experiment. Through the present study, knowledge was obtained to evaluate heat-transfer from the remaining core-materials to the CRGT.