Experimental investigations on rod bundle cooling by a water spray in spent fuel pool accident conditions

Guillaume Brillant (1)

1 IRSN/PSN-RES/SEREX - Service d'Etude et de Recherche EXpérimentale

Increased attention has been paid in the last decade to the Spent Fuel Pools (SFP) accident phenomenology. The DENOPI project is part of this approach with the aim to gain knowledge in the SFP under loss of cooling or loss of coolant accident conditions and to better evaluate the safety margins. Questions are still pending regarding the physical phenomena involved during the uncovery phase of the accident. Besides, the capabilities of a spray system to cool down a partially or totally uncovered assembly must be assessed. To address these issues, the ASPIC facility has been set up at the scale of one full height 17x17 rod bundle which is electrically heated. In this study, the results of a reference test are presented and discussed. For instance, the rod and wall section temperatures are analyzed and a comparison is undertaken for the time evolution of these temperatures with and without the activation of the spray during the test. Besides, the impact of the spray on the outlet steam characteristics is examined.

Mots clés: Spent Fuel Pool; Loss-Of-Cooling Accident; Spray

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

Guillaume Brillant. Experimental investigations on rod bundle cooling by a water spray in spent fuel pool accident conditions. 11th International Conférence on Multiphase Flow, ICMF 2023, Apr 2023, Kobe, Japan. ⟨irsn-04100245⟩