Measurements of in-vessel and ex-vessel liquid corium surface tension and density in the VITI-MBP test bench within ALISA Euro-Chinese project

Abstract

Within the ALISA (Access to Large Infrastructures for Severe Accidents) cooperation between the European Union and China on SA (Severe Accident) facilities, CNPRI (China Nuclear Power technology Research Institute) has proposed to CEA (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives) a series of experiments to determine the density and surface tension of different oxidic mixtures representative from both in-vessel and ex-vessel retention scenarios. This article describes those tests performed in the VITI facility in in CEA severe accident experimental platform, PLINIUS, by means of the Maximum Bubble Pressure (MBP) method. The measurement procedure using the Maximum Bubble Pressure method is described. A first estimate of in-vessel corium surface tension is given, while both density and surface tension measurements are successfully performed for both ex-vessel corium compositions, which constitutes to our best knowledge the first measurements ever performed for ex-vessel (MCCI) liquid corium compositions.