Results of two-phase flow experiments with an integrated Ingress-of-Coolant Event (ICE) test facility for ITER safety

An integrated ICE (Ingress-of-Coolant Event) test facility was constructed in order to demonstrate the adequacy of the ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) safety design approach and investigate two-phase flow behavior during an ICE event. The integrated ICE test facility corresponds to approximately 1/1600 of the ITER components. In the experiments the fluid flow configurations inside the vacuum vessel at the ICE events were observed visually and pressure transients were measured quantitatively. Two-phase flow analyses were carried out with the TRAC code and the experimental results were validated numerically. From the present study it was clarified that the ITER pressure suppression system is very effective in reducing the pressure rise in case of the ICE event and the water–vapor two-phase flow characteristics in ITER can be predicted numerically with sufficient accuracy.