Experimental investigation of natural convection heat transfer in volumetrically heated spherical segments. Final report
- Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
One strategy for preventing the failure of lower head of a nuclear reactor vessel is to flood the concrete cavity with subcooled water in accidents in which relocation of core material into the vessel lower head occurs. After the core material relocates into the vessel, a crust of solid material forms on the inner wall of the vessel, however, most of the pool remains molten and natural convection exists in the pool. At present, uncertainty exists with respect to natural convection heat transfer coefficients between the pool of molten core material and the reactor vessel wall. In the present work, experiments were conducted to examine natural convection heat transfer in internally heated partially filled spherical pools with external cooling. In the experiments, Freon-113 contained in a Pyrex bell jar was used as a test liquid. The pool was bounded with a spherical segment at the bottom, and was heated with magnetrons taken from a conventional microwave oven. The vessel was cooled from the outside with natural convection of water or with nucleate boiling of liquid nitrogen.
- Research Organization:
- Electric Power Research Inst. (EPRI), Palo Alto, CA (United States); Univ. of California, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- Electric Power Research Inst., Palo Alto, CA (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 354957
- Report Number(s):
- EPRI-TR-108878; TRN: AHC29924%%161
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: Mar 1998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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