Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AMHYCO (TOWARDS AN ENHANCED ACCIDENT MANAGEMENT OF THE HYDROGEN/CO COMBUSTION RISK)
Período documentado: 2020-10-01 hasta 2022-03-31
Why is it important? Combustible gases generated in the course of a severe accident are among the most serious threats to the containment integrity, i.e. the last barrier. An appropriate management of the associated risk is paramount to avoid the potential release of significant amounts of radioactive material to the environment. Since the Fukushima accident, more measurements to reduce the risk of containment failure have been taken from the European Union (EU) Nuclear Power Plants.
The key strategic objectives of the AMHYCO project are:
• To experimentally investigate phenomena that are difficult to predict theoretically such as H2/CO combustion and PARs (Passive Autocatalytic Recombiners) behaviour under realistic accidental conditions, taking into account their interaction with safety systems.
• To improve the predictability of analysis tools Including Lumped Parameter (LP), 3D and Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) codes – used for explosion hazard evaluation inside the reactor containment and providing support to Severe Accident Management Guidelines (SAMGs) design and development.
• To improve the SAMG for both in vessel and ex-vessel phases with respect to combustible gases risk management, using theoretical, simulation and experimental results.
In WP2 ‘Selection of severe accident sequences’, the generic containments have been developed and severe accident sequences have been calculated.
In WP3 ‘Experimental investigations’, the first experiments on H2/CO flame acceleration have been performed (no data existed before in the literature). PAR experiments in the REKO facilities have been performed to validate numerical PAR models. Correlations are now being investigated.
The work in WP4 ‘Full containment analysis’ and WP5 ‘Enhancement of severe accident management guidelines’ will start later.
In WP6 ‘Dissemination, communication, education and training’, many activities took place: workshops with PhD students, mobility programme, funding of the PhD thesis, participation at many events and conferences. In total, 5 papers were already presented in this reporting period and several more will be presented in the coming months.