On 11th and 12th October 2016 in Pertuis, France, a seminar of the French RSNR ICE (Interaction corium Eau) project took place. Five-year ICE project, which will be completed in 2018, is part of the program "Tomorrow's Nuclear Energy" of French Agency for Research and Development (ANR). Participants in the project are IRSN, CEA, EDF, AREVA and Université de Lorraine. The seminar was organized by Dr. Renaud Meignen, IRSN, and Dr. Pascal Piluso, CEA, with whom JSI has been engaged for many years in research of fuel-coolant interaction. The seminar was attended by around 30 participants from partner organizations, the University of Stuttgart and JSI.
The purpose of the ICE project is to deepen the understanding of the process of disintegration of the melt mechanisms explosion stage, the impact of material properties on oxidation and solidification, and spatial and temporal distribution of the melt and vapors during the mixing phase. Their findings will be used in the development of a computer program MC3D (IRSN), which is aimed for simulating fuel-coolant interaction. Furthermore, the objective of developing the computer program MC3D is to reduce calculation times and complete the adjustment of the program for 3D simulations. CEA is performing new experiments on devices KROTOS, VITI and ATTILHA, in the scope of the project. Great emphasis is also on the direct numerical simulation of the processes of melt fragmentation (Université de Lorraine) and heat transfer between the mixing and the explosion phase (IRSN).
At the intermediate seminar the results of experimental and numerical studies of fragmentation, oxidation, coagulation and evaporation mechanisms were presented. The simulation results of KROTOS KT1 integral experiment and reactor calculations were also shown. At the invitation of the coordinator of the project, Dr. Renaud Meignena, Dr. Mitja Uršič presented a paper “Fuel-Sodium modeling interaction: status and Comparison with Fuel-Water Interaction” prepared by M. Uršic and M. Leskovar.
Invitation to the seminar is the result of a longstanding cooperation between the Reactor Engineering Department and the IRSN in the development of a computer program MC3D. The seminar was also used to make arrangements for the future cooperation in the modeling of the sodium-melt interaction and the modeling of steam explosions.