The results of a medium-scale experiment in which a prototypical melt is produced by combustion of a chemically active substance in the course of the reaction 2Fe 2 O 3 + 3Zr = 3ZrO 2 + 4Fe + 2840 kJ/kg in a~6·10 -2 m 3 concrete container are presented. It is shown that the ~100 kg melt, whose temperature is 2700-3200 K, so obtained produces heat fluxes 100-150 kW/m 2 into the walls and bottom of the concrete container for ~10 min. The ablation of the walls of the concrete container was 2.5-3 cm at the completion of the experiment.The development of large-scale nuclear power in the 21st century will require safer nuclear power plants. The safety of nuclear power facilities is becoming a central issue. Even though priority will be given to maximum use of internal protection in the system of means and methods, once again there is urgency to develop external means, specifically, core-melt traps, which will prevent radionuclides from spreading during a large accident with destruction of the core.In the last 20 years, among many directions of research at the All-Russia Research Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF), particularly important are the validation and implementation of the possibilities for modeling suitable accidents in a nuclear power facility by means of non-nuclear sources of energy -chemical explosives, chemically active compositions, and others [1]. Since it is impossible to perform accident experiments with a nuclear power facility under natural conditions, most studies have been performed under in-reactor conditions and, as a rule, on reduced scales. This explains the limited experimental work done on core melt, which is a mixture of a melt of oxide fuel and structural materials at the in-vessel phase of an accident or an even more complicated system which is formed after the melt interacts with the steel vessel of the reactor and the protective concrete outside it. The same is true of the interaction of melt with different structural materials, including construction concrete and heat-resistant materials used for melt traps. In addition, it should be noted that previous studies were performed using small amounts of materials modeling the behavior of melt on small areas of interaction with concrete or protective ceramic building materials [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Boundary effects affected the results, which made it difficult to develop adequate closure relations in mathematical models and computer codes for modeling interaction processes.
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