DCH dispersal and entrainment experiment in a scaled annular cavity Original Research Article

The objective of this experiment was to measure the amount of corium dispersal and the droplet size distribution during high pressure melt ejection from a CE reactor. The melt and the steam flowed to the containment through a narrow annular cavity. The experiment was carried out on a 120th scaled model of the cavity and the containment. The scaling was based on dimensionless numbers obtained from a two-phase flow model of the dispersal and entrainment mechanisms in the cavity. Furthermore, the model shows that the flow in the cavity was choked, so high levels of dispersal and entrainment were possible. The experiment consisted of air—water, air—helium, air—woods metal and helium—woods metal tests; the main result being that the level of dispersal was very high in all cases. The woods metal data supported a separated flow model in the cavity, implying that the gas choked velocity was very high and the droplets very small. In contrast, the measured drop sizes for the water tests were much larger than the separated flow model predictions. This discrepancy could not be resolved because the entrainment mechanism is not properly understood at the present time.