Quench cooling of superheated debris beds in containment during LWR core meltdown accidents

Conference · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1984

OSTI ID:5830054

Ginsberg, T; Chen, J C

Light water reactor core meltdown accident sequence studies suggest that superheated debris beds may settle on the concrete floor beneath the reactor vessel. A model for the heat transfer processes during quench of superheated debris beds cooled by an overlying pool of water has been presented in a prior paper. This paper discusses the coolability of decay-heated debris beds from the standpoint of their transient quench characteristics. It is shown that even though a debris bed configuration may be coolable from the point of view of steady-state decay heat removal, the quench behavior from an initially elevated temperature may lead to bed melting prior to quench of the debris.

• Research Organization: Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (USA); Lehigh Univ., Bethlehem, PA (USA). Dept. of Chemical Engineering
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-76CH00016
• OSTI ID: 5830054
• Report Number(s): BNL-NUREG-34655-Rev.; CONF-840914-3-Rev.; ON: TI85007947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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