Study of Influences of the Level of Zr Oxidation and Volumetric Heat Generation on Heat Transfer and Crust Formation Within CANDU Corium

A full-station blackout at a nuclear power plant can lead to fuel failures and radiological release to the environment if there is a breach of the reactor vessel. For Canada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactors, the expected failure mechanism is through thermal stress concentration at the calandria vessel wall, and is thus influenced by local heat flux values. The current study uses computational fluid dynamics to simulate heat transfer, fluid …