Probing Corium in severe nuclear accident experiments: Development of acoustic techniques resisting very high temperatures

• DOI: 10.1121/2.0001075
• Publication Date: 2019-12-17T18:00:06Z
• Authors: Matthieu Cavaro; Kevin Paumel; Nourdine Chikhi; Pascal Fouquart; Jules Delacroix; Romain Le Tellier; Viviane Bouyer
• Keywords: Corium; Cabin pressurization; Instrumentation; Waveguide

Since the Fukushima-Daiichi accident, severe accident research has been reconsidered from another perspective. In case of a in nuclear reactor, core can melt to form corium, complex mixture molten fuel and structural materials. order improve reactor safety mitigate on site, it is important understand behaviour corium configurations. context in-vessel retention (IVR) studies, scientific community limited knowledge immiscible phase stratification phenomenon. This could be further developed thanks experiments with dedicated online instrumentation follow metal relocation transient occurring below oxide inversion kinetics. resist an aggressive liquid high temperatures (1700–3000°C). The study ultrasonic technique, based time-of-flight measurements, using refractory material waveguide progress. paper describes feasibility approach used resulting choice (able withstand temperatures, no interaction steel, transmission acoustic wave at waveguide/ steel interface), transducer, numerical simulations, results preliminary performed temperature (>1500°C).