The thermal interaction of certain molten materials such as Al2O3 with
water results in vapor explosions with very high (supercritical) pres
sures and propagation velocities. A quasi-steady-state analysis and a
transient analysis of a supercritical vapor explosion in one-dimension
al multiphase flow were applied to analyze experimental data of an Al2
O3-water fuel/coolant interaction obtained from the KROTOS 26, 28, 29,
and 30 tests. The shock adiabatic thermodynamic model and the TEXAS m
echanistic model were used to perform this analysis. The predicted res
ults of the initial vapor void fraction and explosion conversion ratio
from both models, together with the estimated experimental results, f
or the KROTOS 26 test were compared.