Corrosion of vessel steel during its interaction with molten corium: Part 2: Model development

An experimental examination of the cooled vessel steel corrosion during the interaction with molten corium is presented. The experiments have been conducted on “Rasplav-2” test facility and followed up with physico-chemical and metallographic analyses of melt samples and corium-specimen ingots. The results discussed in the first part of the paper have revealed specific corrosion mechanisms for air and inert atmosphere above the melt. Models have been proposed based on this information and approximate curves constructed for the estimation of the corrosion rate or corrosion depth of vessel steel in conditions simulated by the experiments.