Numerical Prediction and Optimization of Depressurized Sodium-Water Reaction Experiment With Counter-Flow Diffusion Flame

Sodium-water reaction (SWR) is a design basis accident of a Sodium Fast Reactor (SFR). A breach of the heat transfer tube in a steam generator (SG) results in contact of liquid sodium with water. Typical phenomenon is that the pressurized water blows off, vaporizes and mixes with the liquid sodium. In this paper, a new computer program has been developed and the SWR in a counter-flow diffusion flame is studied by a numerical simulations and an experiment. The experiment is designed with the numerical simulation so that the stable reaction flame is maintained for long time and physical and chemical quantities are measured. From the comparison of analysis and experiment, there exist discrepancies that may be caused by the assumptions of chemical reaction. Hence, a new experiment is proposed to enhance the measurement accuracy and to investigate the reason of the disagreement. The authors propose a depressurized experiment. With the depressurization, it is expected the flame location can be controlled and the reaction region becomes thicker because of decrease in reactant gas density.