Experiments to Investigate Direct Containment Heating Phenomena with Scaled Models of the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant

摘要

The Surtsey Test Facility at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is used to perform scaled experiments for the Nuclear Regulatory Commision (NRC) that simulate High Pressure Melt Ejection (HPME) accidents in a nuclear power plant (NPP). These experiments are designed to investigate the effects of direct containment heating (DCH) phenomena on the containment load. This report describes tests performed with Combustion Engineering plant geometries (in particular, Calvert Cliffs-like) and the impact of codispersed water as part of the overall DCH issue resolution. Integral effects tests were performed with a 1/10th scale model of the Calvert Cliffs NPP inside the Surtsey test vessel. The experiemnts investigated the effect of codispersal of water, steam, and molten core simulant materials on DCH loads under prototypic accident conditions and plant configurations. The results indicated that large amounts of coejected water reduced the DCH load be a small amount. Large amounts of debris were dispersed from the cavity to the upper dome (via the annular gap).