An experimental study on coolability of a particulate bed with radial stratification or triangular shape

This paper deals with the results of an experimental study on the coolability of particulate beds with radial stratification and triangular shape, respectively. The study is intended to get an idea on how the coolability is affected by the different features of a debris bed formed in a severe accident of light water reactors. The experiments were performed on the POMECO-HT facility which was constructed to investigate two-phase flow and heat transfer in particulate beds under either top-flooding or bottom-fed condition. A downcomer is designed to enable investigation of the effectiveness of natural circulation driven coolability. Two homogenous beds were also employed in the present study to compare their dryout power densities with those of the radially stratified bed and the triangular bed. The results show that the dryout heat fluxes of the homogeneous beds at top-flooding condition can be predicted by the Reed model. For the radially stratified bed, the dryout heat flux is dominated by two-phase flow in the columns packed with larger particles, and the dryout occurred initially near the boundary between the middle column and a side column. Given the same volume of particles under top-flooding condition, the dryout power density of the triangular bed is about 69% higher than that of the homogenous bed. The coolability of all the beds is enhanced by bottom-fed coolant driven by either forced injection or downcomer-induced natural circulation.