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Title: OECD MCCI Project: Category 2 Coolability Engineering Enhancement Tests and Water-Cooled Basemat Test 1 (WCB-1) Test Plan (Rev. 2)

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1177564· OSTI ID:1177564
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  1. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Nuclear Engineering Divison

Ex-vessel debris coolability is an important light water reactor (LWR) safety issue. For existing plants, resolution of this issue will confirm the technical basis for severe accident management guidelines (SAMGs). For new reactors, understanding this issue will help confirm the effectiveness of the design and implementation of new accident mitigation features and severe accident management design alternatives (SAMDAs). The first OECD-MCCI program conducted reactor material experiments focused on achieving the following technical objectives: i) provide confirmatory evidence and data for various cooling mechanisms through separate effect tests for severe accident model development, and ii) provide long-term 2-D core-concrete interaction data for code assessment and improvement. The objective of this document is to provide a summary test plan for the first Water-Cooled Basemat test (WCB-1) for PRG review. The experiment approach is to incorporate a watercooled basemat into the core-concrete interaction test apparatus. The basemat is composed of five parallel water channels that are instrumented to provide both local and global data on the heat transfer performance. The basemat is covered with a layer of sacrificial concrete that will be ablated by the overlying melt at the start of the experiment. Eventually, the melt will approach and then be thermally stabilized at the interface of the water-cooled basemat. The test is thus designed to provide prototypic data on the transient evolution and stabilization of a core melt in a generic water-cooled core catcher design for advanced plant applications.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) - Nuclear Energy Agency; Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
DOE Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
OSTI ID:
1177564
Report Number(s):
OECD/MCCI-2008-TR04; 114090
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English