Fission product release mechanisms and pathways

摘要

It is axiomatic that the severity of a nuclear reactor accident is determined by the extent of radioactivity escape which results. The main focus of site safety analyses is thus on fission product release and transport. Of all the processes involved, fission product escape from the fuel-cladding region into the primary coolant circuit is perhaps the most simple to describe; even so, it is an extremely complex function of the time/temperature history of the fuel-cladding system during an accident, since many mechanisms for release are involved. Depending upon the particular fission product species, these release mechanisms range from simple gaseous expansion processes at low temperatures to evaporation-condensation processes (aerosol formation) over molten fuel. Because of these complexities, it is convenient to subdivide the time/temperature sequence of an accident into more or less discrete phases over which specific release mechanisms dominate. Four such phases are the periods of (1) gap release, (2) meltdown release, (3) vaporization, and (4) oxidation release. This approach simplifies the problem considerably, although some loss of uniformity results. The methodology applies to BWR and PWR reactors with appropriate adaptations.