Discover the new doctoral training offered by IMI and ED 353!

This project concerns the characterization of the cooling of a partially melted nuclear power plant core in an accident situation. More specifically, our project aims to answer the question: how effective are the devices designed to cool and maintain the corium and debris in the reactor vessel (IVR approach for "In-Vessel Retention")?

Speakers for this Training :

  • Laure Carenini (Research Engineer, Corium Physics Study Laboratory-LEPC, IRSN) 1h30
  • Benjamin Favier (CNRS, AMU, IRPHE) 1h30

A project combining research and application

More fundamentally, our aim is to study convective motions in a superficial metal layer, radiatively heated on its lower surface, and cooled on its lateral surface and, to a lesser extent, on its upper surface by radiation. Such a configuration has been the subject of very few academic studies, and the assessments currently carried out in industrial codes are based on the use of correlations obtained in configurations where the metal layer is sufficiently thick and cooling by its upper surface sufficiently efficient to be able to deal decoupled with heat transfers to the top and those to the vessel wall. However, the most critical situations are obtained for metal layer thicknesses lower than those evaluated in steady state, which calls into question the validity of the correlations used to calculate heat exchanges in this layer.

This project is the subject of a thesis currently being carried out at IRPHE, jointly funded by Areva, EDF and IRSN.

Training will take place in two parts :

  • The industrial context, technical issues and tools used within IRSN to study this type of accidental event will be presented.

  • A few theoretical elements on thermal convection will be recalled before presenting how the industrial problem leads to a new academic problem that has yet to be fully explored. Two complementary models will be developed, one numerical and the other experimental.

  • This training will enable registered students to be credited with 3 hours of doctoral training.

  • The 1st session will take place on Thursday May 19, 2022 at 2 p.m. (IRPHE amphitheater).