CSNI1023 CORA-13.

CORA-13, Experiment on severe fuel damage, core degradation and quench

NAME OF EXPERIMENT, COMPUTER, DESCRIPTION OF TEST FACILITY, DESCRIPTION OF TEST, PHENOMENA TESTED, STATUS, REFERENCES, TEST DESIGNATION, LANGUAGE, ESTABLISHMENT, MATERIAL, CATEGORIES

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1. NAME OF EXPERIMENT: CORA-13.

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2. COMPUTERS

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Program name	Package id	Status	Status date
CORA-13	CSNI1023/01	Report	01-JUL-1993

Machines used:

No specified machine

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3. DESCRIPTION OF TEST FACILITY

CORA- test facility operated at Kernforschungszentrum Karlsruhe serving to study the behaviour of PWR fuel elements under severe accident conditions
- fuel rod bundle with heated and unheated rods under controlled thermal-hydraulic boundary conditions, high temperature radiation shield surrounding the bundle
- heated fuel rods consist of 6 mm diameter tungsten rod surrounded by UO2 annular pellets
- two absorber rods added to the bundle to simulate interaction of fuel rods with absorber rod materials
- steam supply to provide superheated steam
- refill or quench phase added

Scaling Information: heated length of rods 1,000 mm, rod dimensions and pitch corresponding to original PWR fuel

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4. DESCRIPTION OF TEST

Severe core damage experiment with quenching, of a full length simulated fuel bundle, heated with internal tungsten heaters. Investigations of the material relocation dynamics, quench phenomena and hydrogen generation.
The out-of-pile experiment CORA-13 was executed in November 1990.
In the experiments the decay heat is simulated by electrical heating. Great emphasis is given to the fact that the test bundles contain all
materials used in light-water reactor fuel elements, to investigate the different material interactions. Pellets, cladding, grid spacers,
absorber rods and the pertinent guide tubes are typical of those of commercial LWRs with respect to their compositions and radial
dimensions.

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6. PHENOMENA TESTED

Objectives:
- Analysis of the heat-up and meltdown phases of a PWR type fuel element in the CORA test facility.
- specific emphasis on reliability and accuracy of severe accident computer codes.
- investigation into the thermal and mechanical behaviour of a fuel bundle at high temperatures (e.g., formation of blockages, fragmentation of rods.
- study of physico-chemical processes during core degradation (e.g., oxidation of cladding and other metallic components, hydrogen formation).

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9. STATUS