Cooling of molten core material within a pressurised water reactor vessel lower head: interaction of surface radiation and wall conduction with free convection
A. Liaqat et Ac. Baytas, Cooling of molten core material within a pressurised water reactor vessel lower head: interaction of surface radiation and wall conduction with free convection, INT J ENG S, 39(18), 2001, pp. 2089-2102
The phenomenon of cooling of molten core material inside the lower head of
a pressurised water reactor pressure vessel has been analysed numerically.
A detailed analysis of interaction of surface radiation and conjugate wall
conduction with free convection inside the semi-circular cavity has been pr
esented. The effect of parameters which govern the radiative heat transfer
from the pool surface has been investigated. The results show that for a ce
rtain set of parameters radiative heat transfer from the pool surface is mo
re efficient than convection towards vessel circular wall. For all the case
s considered in the present analysis well-stratified corium pool has been o
btained. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.