Numerical simulation of self-leveling behavior in debris bed by a hybrid method

The postulated core disruptive accidents (CDAs) are regarded as particular difficulties in the safety analysis of liquid-metal fast reactors (LMFRs). In the CDAs, the self-leveling behavior of debris bed is a crucial issue to the relocation of molten core and heat-removal capability of the debris bed. The fast reactor safety analysis code, SIMMER-III, which is a 2D, multi-velocity-field, multiphase, multicomponent, Eulerian, fluid dynamics code coupled with a fuel-pin model and a space- and energy-dependent neutron kinetics model, was successfully applied to a series of CDA assessments. However, strong interactions among rich solid particles as well as particle characteristics in multiphase flows were not taken into consideration for fluid-dynamics models of SIMMER-III. In this article, a developed hybrid method, by coupling the discrete element method (DEM) with the multi-fluid model of SIMMER-III, is applied in the numerical simulation of self-leveling behavior in debris bed. In the coupling algorithm, the motions of gas and liquid phases are solved by a time-factorization (time-splitting) method. For particles, contact forces among particles and interactions between particles and fluid phases are considered through DEM. The applicability of the method in such complicate three phase flow is validated by taking the simulation of a simplified self-leveling experiment in literature. Reasonable agreement between simulation results and corresponding experimental data shows that the present method could provide a promising means for the analysis of self-leveling behavior of debris bed in CDAs.