A Phenomenological Model for the Transport and Plugging of Aerosol through Stress Corrosion Cracks

Technical Report · Fri Nov 29 04:00:00 EST 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1819623· OSTI ID:1819623

Chatzidakis, Stylianos ^[1]; Scaglione, John M. ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Recent experimental evidence from Sandia (2018) demonstrated partial microchannel plugging due to particulate deposition. A direct consequence is that the accuracy of consequence assessments can be improved by accounting for the leak path deposition of aerosol in the source term. The filtration effect of microchannels, such as cracks, is relevant to the source term assessments. An important side effect of aerosol deposition in leak paths could be the plugging of the leak path. This report summarizes current progress (as of end of FY19) on the development of a phenomenological model of aerosol transport, deposition, and plugging through microchannels. The purpose is to introduce a generic, reliable numerical model for prediction of aerosol transport, deposition, and plugging in leak paths that are similar to stress corrosion cracks while accounting for potential plugging formation. This effort includes (i) development of a numerical model to analyze the various deposition processes in leak paths and provide quantitative estimates of penetration factors, as well as an understanding of the variables that affect them, (ii) confirmation of model validity with theoretical and experimental data, and (iii) parametric analysis for different scenarios including various particle sizes, pressures, and crack dimensions. Such a model could be used to improve the accuracy of consequence assessments and reduce the uncertainty of radiological consequence predictive analyses by taking the filtering effect of leak path aerosol deposition and plugging into account in the source term. This report includes: (i) an overview of main stress corrosion cracking characteristics, (ii) an overview of the developed numerical model to analyze the various deposition processes in leak paths, to provide quantitative estimates of penetration factors, and to gain an understanding of the variables that affect them, (iii) a summary of validation results and verification of the model’s validity with recent experimental results from Sandia and others, and (iv) a model application example.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE), Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition. Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Science and Technology
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1819623
• Report Number(s): ORNL/SPR-2019/1413
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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