Influence of temperature on thermo physical properties of non-prototype material (CaO-Fe2O3, 21:79 by wt. %) for nuclear reactor

Abstract

In severe accident management, the integrity of the containment structure is a key point to focus the study related to severe accident scenarios that need knowledge of thermo-physical properties of material composition. In the present nuclear accident scenario, nuclear severe accident management is one of the challenging tasks to mitigate the phenomena occurring inside the reactor pressure vessel (RPV). Numerous studies have been done in the past to predict the severe accident phenomena and tried to explore the incidence by using different prototype and non-prototype (simulant) materials. In this context, an initial effort has been made to study the actual phenomena during an accident scenario with non-prototype material CaO-Fe₂O₃. Initially, the present work involved the study of the material CaO-Fe₂O₃ powder for thermo-physical property analysis and later, the study will be carried out via melt cool ability of this material in a hypothetical nuclear reactor for analysis and mitigation of nuclear severe accident phenomena. The non-eutectic binary powder mixture of CaO and Fe₂O₃ has prepared manually by mixing in a mortar for 40 minutes in the ratio of 21:79 by wt. % (21C79F; C refers to CaO and F refers to Fe₂O₃) which has been confirmed by the phase diagram. Further, pallets were prepared of the non-eutectic binary mixture and heat-treated at 1000°C, 1100°C, and 1200°C for 3 hours in a programmable furnace. The powder form of heat-treated pellets was characterized to analyze thermo-physical properties and to validate as a simulant material (non-prototype) used for the predictive study of a nuclear severe accident. The thermal properties, phase analysis, and morphological studies of the CaO-Fe₂O₃ (21:79 by wt. %) have been reported in the current research work and analyzed accordingly.