In-Vessel Retention of PHWRs: Experiments at Prototypic Temperatures

Abstract

In pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs), multiple failures of engineered safety features may cause a failure of core cooling eventually leading to core collapse. The failed fuel and fuel channels relocate to the bottom of the calandria vessel (CV) and form a terminal debris bed, which generates decay heat. With time, the moderator evaporates and the terminal debris bed ultimately melts and forms a molten pool of corium. If corium breaches the CV and enters the calandria vault, large amounts of hydrogen and other fission gases may be generated due to molten core concrete interaction, which may pressurize the containment leading to containment failure. In addition, the passive catalytic recombiner devices may be incapable of managing such large amounts of hydrogen. Hence, in-vessel retention of corium is the only option to the avert progression of the accident. The heat removal capability of the CV needs to be demonstrated in order to attain the goal of in-vessel retention, to contain the corium during severe accidents. A lot of numerical analysis of heat removal capability of the CV has been done. However, experimental demonstration of in-vessel retention has been rarely presented in the literature, especially for PHWRs. In this paper, in-vessel retention at prototypic temperatures has been presented. Experiments have been carried out in scaled CVs. Different corium simulants have been used at elevated temperatures and corium coolability has been demonstrated.