Publications Details

MELCOR STUDY OF ALKALINE CARBONATE COOLING TO MITIGATE EX-VESSEL MOLTEN CORIUM ACCIDENTS

Laros, James H.; Ross, Kyle W.; Wang, Yifeng

A MELCOR severe accident nuclear reactor code study of alkaline carbonate cooling to mitigate exvessel molten corium accident is described. This study is a part of a 3-year laboratory directed research and development project funded by Sandia National Laboratories. This study examines a novel method to provide an injectable mitigation system, capitalizing the endothermic decomposition of alkaline carbonate to absorb the decay heat and cool the molten corium resulting from a reactor vessel failure accident. A simplified granular carbonate decomposition model has been developed and has been implemented into a MELCOR input model to simulate the cooling effect of the carbonate in both a spreading experiment and a full plant accident model. The results seem promising to stop corium spreading and delay the severity of the accident by at least one-half day which may be enough for additional accident management to alleviate the situation.