Thermo-Physical Properties of CaO-Fe2O3 Binary Mixture and its Application in the Field of Nuclear Reactor as Simulant Material

Abstract

 Abstract: The simulant materials play important role in the melt coolability experiments to understand the actual scenarios of core melt accidents in the field of nuclear reactor. Simulant materials are generally oxide/ceramics materials which have the properties similar to the properties of corium (mixture of UO 2 , ZrO 2 , Zr alloy, Fe, Ni and Cr etc.). This work was carried out to determine the the properties of corium. It was observed that the thermo-physical properties of CaO-Fe 2 O 3 binary mixture are close to the properties of corium, so it can be said that this material is simulant material. In this research work, thermal behavior of CaO-Fe 2 O 3 was also carried out using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The simulant material CaO-Fe 2 O 3 can be used in the melt coolability experiment to understand the phenomena that happened during the core melt accidents in the nuclear reactor.