Experimental Research for CHF Sensitivity of Heat Flux Distribution under IVR Conditions

In-vessel retention (IVR) through external reactor vessel cooling (ERVC) is one of the most effective severe accident mitigation measures in the nuclear power plants. The most influential issues on the IVR strategy are in-vessel core melt evolution, the heat fluxes imposed on the lower head, and the external cooling of reactor pressurized vessel (RPV). In the molten pool research, there are mainly two different molten pool configurations: two layers and three layers. Based on the different distributions of heat flux in molten pool configurations, a new problem was raised: whether the in-vessel heat flux distribution will affect the CHF on the outer wall of RPV and further affect the effectiveness of IVR measures? A full-height external reactor vessel cooling and natural circulating facility was conducted to study the CHF sensitivity of different heat flux distributions. The experimental results show that the characteristics of natural circulation are similar and the CHF of the RPV lower head external surface is not obviously affected under the different heat flux distributions. The varying heat flux distribution during severe accident process will not threaten significantly the success of IVR strategy.