Source-term experiment STEP-3 simulating a PWR severe station blackout

Conference · Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1987 · Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc.; (United States)

OSTI ID:6941550

Simms, R; Baker, L Jr; Ritzman, R L

For a severe pressurized water reactor accident that leads to a loss of feedwater to the stream generators, such as might occur in a station blackout, fission product decay heating causes a water boil-off. Without effective decay heat removal, the fuel elements will be uncovered. Eventually, steam will oxidize the overheated cladding. The noble gases and volatile fission products, such as cesium and iodine, that are major contributors to the radiological source term will be released from the damaged fuel shortly after cladding failure. The accident environment when these volatile fission products escape was simulated in STEP-3 using four fuel elements from the Belgonucleaire BR3 reactor. The primary objective was to examine the releases in samples collected as close to the test zone as possible. In this paper, an analysis of the temperatures and hydrogen generation is compared with the measurements. The analysis is needed to estimate releases and characterize conditions at the source for studies of fission product transport.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab., IL (USA)
• OSTI ID: 6941550
• Report Number(s): CONF-8711195-; TRN: 88-032057
• Journal Information: Trans. Am. Nucl. Soc.; (United States), Vol. 55; Conference: American Nuclear Society winter meeting, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 15 Nov 1987
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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