Accident tolerant clad material modeling by MELCOR: Benchmark for SURRY Short Term Station Black Out

Abstract

Accident tolerant fuel and cladding materials are being investigated to provide a greater resistance to fuel degradation, oxidation and melting if long-term cooling is lost in a Light Water Reactor (LWR) following an accident such as a Station Blackout (SBO) or Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA). Researchers at UW-Madison are analyzing an SBO sequence and examining the effect of a loss of auxiliary feedwater (AFW) with the MELCOR systems code. Our research work considers accident tolerant cladding materials (e.g., FeCrAl alloy) and their effect on the accident behavior. We first gathered the physical properties of this alternative cladding material via literature review and compared it to the usual zirconium alloys used in LWRs. We then developed a model for the Surry reactor for a Short-term SBO sequence and examined the effect of replacing FeCrAl for Zircaloy cladding. The analysis uses MELCOR, Version 1.8.6YR, which is developed by Idaho National Laboratory in collaboration with MELCOR developers at Sandia National Laboratories. This version allows the user to alter the cladding material considered, and our study examines the behavior of the FeCrAl alloy as a substitute for Zircaloy. Our benchmark comparisons with the Sandia National Laboratory’s analysis of Surry using MELCOR 1.8.6 and the more recent MELCOR 2.1 indicate good overall agreement through the early phases of the accident progression. When FeCrAl is substituted for Zircaloy to examine its performance, we confirmed that FeCrAl slows the accident progression and reduce the amount of hydrogen generated. Our analyses also show that this special version of MELCOR can be used to evaluate other potential ATF cladding materials, e.g., SiC as well as innovative coatings on zirconium cladding alloys, Cr, ZrSi, TiAlC, and TiSiC. This ATF performance analysis platform will also be used to support experimental work underway in our Integrated Research Project.