Experimental Study of Isothermal and Boiling Liquid Jets

摘要

Recent observations inside the Three Mile Island-Unit 2 reactor core have shown that about 20 tons of core material melted and poured into the lower plenum. The core material is believed to have poured through and around the holes in the structural plates, creating jets of molten corium falling through water. The experimental work described in this paper illustrates the coarse-mixing behavior of molten jets of iron/alumina falling through water. Significant fragmentation of the jet occurs for pour diameters of 4 to 16 cm. The breakup of a boiling-jet appears to depend on the generation of steam and is significantly different from liquid-gas or isothermal liquid-liquid systems. (ERA citation 12:016062)