Investigation of Quench-16 Experiment With MELCOR Computer Code

This paper presents a comparison of MELCOR calculated results with experimental data for the QUENCH-16 experiment. The analysis for the air ingress experiment QUENCH-16 has been performed by INRNE. The calculations have been performed with MELCOR code. The QUENCH-16 experiment has been performed on 27-th of July 2011 in the frame of the EC-supported LACOMECO program. The experiments have focused on air ingress investigation into an overheated core following earlier partial oxidation in steam. QUENCH-16 has been performed with limited pre-oxidation and low air flow rate. One of the main objectives of QUENCH-16 was to examine the interaction between nitrogen and oxidized cladding during a prolonged period of oxygen starvation. The bundle is made from 20 heated fuel rod simulators arranged in two concentric rings and one unheated central fuel rod simulator, each about 2.5 m long. The tungsten heaters were surrounded by annular ZrO2 pellets to simulate the UO2 fuel. The geometry and most other bundle components are prototypical for Western-type PWRs. To improve the obtained results it has been made a series of calculations to select an appropriate initial temperature of the oxidation of the fuel bundle and modified correlation oxidation of Zircaloy with MELCOR computer code. The compared results have shown good agreement of calculated hydrogen and oxygen starvation in comparison with test data.