Sodium-concrete reaction (SCR) is one of the important phenomena during severe accidents in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFRs) owing to the generation of large sources of hydrogen and aerosols in the containment vessel [1–3]. In this study, SCR experiments were performed to investigate the chemical reaction beneath the internal heater (800 °C), which was used to simulate the obstacle and heating effect for SCR. Furthermore, the effects of the internal heater on the self-termination mechanism were discussed.
The internal heater on the concrete seemed to hinder the transport of Na into the concrete. Therefore, Na could react with the concrete at the periphery of the internal heater. The concrete ablation depth at the periphery was larger than under the internal heater. However, the Na concentration around the reaction front was about 30 wt.% despite the position of the internal heater. The Na concentration was similar to that of Na2SiO3, which was almost same as that in our past study [4–5]. It was found that the Na concentration condition was one of the dominant parameters for the self-termination of SCR, even in the presence of the internal heater.
