TEMperature Pressure ESTimation of a homogeneous boiling fuel-steel mixture in an LMFBR core. [TEMPEST code]

Technical Report · Mon Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1976

OSTI ID:7231215

Pyun, J J; Majumdar, D

The paper describes TEMPEST, a simple computer program for the temperature and pressure estimation of a boiling fuel-steel pool in an LMFBR core. The time scale of interest of this program is large, of the order of ten seconds. Further, the vigorous boiling in the pool will generate a large contact, and hence a large heat transfer between fuel and steel. The pool is assumed to be a uniform mixture of fuel and steel, and consequently vapor production is also assumed to be uniform throughout the pool. The pool is allowed to expand in volume if there is steel melting at the walls. In this program, the total mass of liquid and vapor fuel is always kept constant, but the total steel mass in the pool may change by steel wall melting. Because of a lack of clear understanding of the physical phenomena associated with the progression of a fuel-steel mixture at high temperature, various input options have been built-in to enable one to perform parametric studies. For example, the heat transfer from the pool to the surrounding steel structure may be controlled by input values for the heat transfer coefficients, or, the heat transfer may be calculated by a correlation obtained from the literature. Similarly, condensation of vapor on the top wall can be specified by input values of the condensation coefficient; the program can otherwise calculate condensation according to the non-equilibrium model predictions. Meltthrough rates of the surrounding steel walls can be specified by a fixed melt-rate or can be determined by a fraction of the heat loss that goes to steel-melting. The melted steel is raised to the pool temperature before it is joined with the pool material. Several applications of this program to various fuel-steel pools in the FFTF and the CRBR cores are discussed.

• Research Organization: Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: EY-76-C-02-0016
• OSTI ID: 7231215
• Report Number(s): BNL-NUREG-22140
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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ACCIDENTS
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BREEDER REACTORS
COMPUTER CODES
EPITHERMAL REACTORS
FAST REACTORS
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T CODES
TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION