Numerical simulation of the self-leveling phenomenon by modified SIMMER-III

During a hypothetical core-disruptive accident in a sodium-cooled FBR, degraded core material can form debris beds on the core-support structure and/or in the lower inlet plenum of the reactor vessel, due to the rapid quenching and fragmentation of the core material melt. Heat convection and vaporization of the sodium will lead ultimately to leveling the debris bed that is of crucial importance to the relocation of the molten core, the recriticality evaluation and the heat removal capability of the debris bed. There is, therefore, a great need for more studies focusing on this topic, especially the much needed numerical simulation. The widely-used fast reactor safety analysis code, SIMMER-III, has difficulties in this simulation because of the lack of modeling for mechanistic interactions among particles in the current version. However, the extensive experimental analysis and the previously-proposed analytical model provide SIMMER-III the possibility of taking consideration of the extra influence of solid particles in this phenomenon. Thus, the debris fluidization model and the boiling regulation model are proposed and introduced into SIMMER-III. Calculations, by the modified SIMMER-III, against several representative experiments with typical self-leveling behavior have been performed and compared with the evaluated items recorded in experiments. The good agreements on these items suggest the modified SIMMER-III can simulate the self-leveling behavior with reasonable precision, especially on the onset of self-leveling, although further model improvement is necessary to represent the transient behavior of bed leveling more reasonably.