Status of steam explosion understanding and modelling

Meignen, Renaud; Raverdy, Bruno; Buck, M.; Pohlner, Georg; Kudinov, Pavel; Ma, Weimin; Brayer, Claude; Piluso, Pascal; Hong, Sup; Leskovar, Matjaž; Uršič, Mitja; Albrecht, G.; Lindholm, Ilona; Ivanov, Ivan

doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2014.07.008

Cited by 45 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Under some conditions the vapor layer separating the two liquids becomes unstable and a more violent interaction takes place. This phenomenon is known as a thermal or vapor explosion and is relevant to many natural and practical fields, including fuel coolant interaction in nuclear power plants [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] and contact between ejected lava with sea water or ice [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. Herein we model such interactions with the impact of a molten metal droplet falling onto a water pool, where the metal temperature is far above the boiling temperature of water.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formation of microbeads during vapor explosions of Field's metal in water

Kouraytem

Thoroddsen

2016

Phys. Rev. E

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We use high-speed video imaging to investigate vapor explosions during the impact of a molten Field's metal drop onto a pool of water. These explosions occur for temperatures above the Leidenfrost temperature and are observed to occur in up to three stages as the metal temperature is increased, with each explosion being more powerful that the preceding one. The Field's metal drop breaks up into numerous microbeads with an exponential size distribution, in contrast to tin droplets where the vapor explosion deforms the metal to form porous solid structures. We compare the characteristic bead size to the wavelength of the fastest growing mode of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Formation of microbeads during vapor explosions of Field's metal in water

Kouraytem

Thoroddsen

2016

Phys. Rev. E

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“…interaction between the molten reactor core (spilled from the failed RPV) and the coolant, may lead to steam explosion, with possible damaging consequences on the containment (Meignen et al, 2014). Much research on that topic, especially experimental, has already been done within various projects, such as OECD SERENA.…”

Section: Ex-vessel Fuel-coolant Interactionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Recent severe accident research synthesis of the major outcomes from the SARNET network

Dorsselaere

Auvinen

Beraha

et al. 2015

Nuclear Engineering and Design

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The SARNET network (Severe Accident Research NETwork of excellence), co-funded by the European Commission from 2004 to 2013, has allowed to significantly improve the knowledge on severe accidents and to disseminate it through courses and ERMSAR conferences. The major investigated topics, involving more than 250 researchers from 22 countries, were in- and ex-vessel corium/debris coolability, molten-core–concrete-interaction, steam explosion, hydrogen combustion and mitigation in containment, impact of oxidising conditions on source term, and iodine chemistry. The ranking of the high priority issues was updated to account for the results of recent international research and for the impact of Fukushima nuclear accidents in Japan. In addition, the ASTEC integral code was further developed to capitalize the new knowledge. The network has reached self-sustainability by integration in mid-2013 into the NUGENIA Association. The main activities and outcomes of the network are presented

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“…There is an overall agreement that system size and geometry play an important role in all of the three phases of interaction, and the lack of variety in experimental scales and configurations to date has been a major complication applying experimental results to both industrial and volcanic hazards assessment (Berthoud, ; Meignen, Raverdy, et al, ). A critical parameter arising from analysis in magma‐water interaction settings is the local mass ratio of water and melt that are directly involved in the highly explosive phase (Wohletz et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meter‐Scale Experiments on Magma‐Water Interaction

et al. 2018

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Interaction of magma with groundwater or surface water can lead to explosive phreatomagmatic eruptions. Questions of this process center on effects of system geometry and length and time scales, and these necessitate experiments at larger scale than previously conducted in order to investigate the thermohydraulic escalation behavior of rapid heat transfer. Previous experimental work either realized melt‐water interaction at similar meter scales, using a thermite‐based magma analog in a confining vessel, or on smaller scale using ≃0.4 kg remelted volcanic rock in an open crucible, with controlled premix and a ≃5 J kinetic energy trigger event. The new setup uses 55 kg melt for interaction, and the timing and location of the magma‐water premix can be controlled on a scale up to 1 m. A trigger mechanism is a falling hammer that drives a plunger into the melt (≃28 J kinetic energy). Results show intense interaction ( Lmax≥0.250.3emm2) at relatively low magma/water mass ratio. A video analysis quantifies rate and amount of melt ejection and compares results with those using the same melt in the smaller scale setup. Experiments show that on the meter scale intense interaction can start spontaneously without an external trigger if the melt column above the initial mixing location is larger than 0.3 m. Experiments suggest that buoyant rise of water domains in a melt column could promote explosive interaction. We assess interaction scenarios between introduced water domains and a magma column, some of which could result in eruptions of Strombolian style, promoting brecciation and incorporation of wall rock debris into a magma column.

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Status of steam explosion understanding and modelling

Cited by 45 publications

References 5 publications

Formation of microbeads during vapor explosions of Field's metal in water

Formation of microbeads during vapor explosions of Field's metal in water

Recent severe accident research synthesis of the major outcomes from the SARNET network

Meter‐Scale Experiments on Magma‐Water Interaction

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