Study on severe accident fuel dispersion behavior in the Advanced Neutron Source reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Core flow blockage events are a leading contributor to core damage initiation risk in the Advanced Neutron Source (ANS) reactor. During such an accident, insufficient cooling of the fuel could result in core heatup and melting under full coolant flow condition. Coolant inertia forces acting on the melt surface would likely break up the melt into small particles. Under thermal-hydraulic conditions of ANS coolant channel, micro-fine melt particles are expected. Heat transfer between melt particle and coolant, which affects particle breakup, was studied. The study indicates that the thermal effect on melt fragmentation seems to be negligible because the time corresponding to the breakup due to hydrodynamic forces is much shorter than the time for the melt surface to solidify. The study included modeling and analyses to predict transient behavior and transport of debris particles throughout the coolant system. The transient model accounts for the surface forces acting on the particle that results from the pressure variation on the surface, inertia, virtual mass, viscous force due to relative motion of particle in the coolant, gravitation, and resistance due to inhomogenous coolant velocity radially across piping due to possible turbulent coolant motions. Results indicate that debris particles would reside longest in heat exchangers because of lower coolant velocity there. Also core debris tends to move together upon melting and entrainment