A heat transfer correlation based on a surface renewal model for molten core concrete interaction study

The prediction of heat transfer between corium pool and concrete basemat is of particular significance in the framework of the study of PWR's severe accident. Heat transfer directly governs the ablation velocity of concrete in case of molten core concrete interaction (MCCI) and, consequently, the time delay when the reactor cavity may fail. From a restricted hydrodynamic point of view, this issue is related to heat transfer between a heated bubbling pool and a porous wall with gas injection. Several experimental studies have been performed with simulant materials and many correlations have been provided to address this issue. The comparisons of the results of these correlations with the measurements and their extrapolation to reactor materials show that strong discrepancies between the results of these models are obtained which probably means that some phenomena are not well taken into account. The main purpose of this paper is to present an alternative heat transfer model which was originally developed for chemical engineering applications (bubble columns) by Deckwer. A part of this work is devoted to the presentation of this model, which is based on a surface renewal assumption. Comparison of the results of this model with available experimental data in different systems are presented and discussed. These comparisons clearly show that this model can be used to deal with the particular problem of MCCI. The analyses also lead to enrich the original model by taking into account the thermal resistance of the wall: a new formulation of the Deckwer's correlation is finally proposed.