A Corium Research Platform for the Resolution of Severe Accident Issues

摘要

The advent of Fukushima accident, which resulted in a melting of core and subsequent release of molten core material out of the reactor vessel, drew attention on the behavior of molten corium interacting with water and/or structural materials. The TROI facility established at KAERI provides a platform for corium water interaction experiment, while VESTA facility provides a platform for corium-structure interaction experiment. TROI was used for steam explosion research to investigate the premixing behavior and energetics of fuel coolant interaction using corium at various compositions. Comparative tests simulating the fuel and coolant interaction in reactor cavity with a shallow water pool and submerged reactor cases were performed to investigate the premixing behavior. High speed video image and debris size distribution were compared. VESTA facility is used to investigate the mechanism of penetration failure during core melt progression for APR1400 and Fukushima Dai-ich nuclear power plant. Experiments for melting and solidification of corium performed at VESTA indicated that the molten corium layers tend to separate into distinct metal rich layer and oxide rich layer.