Manara Dario, Soldi Luca, Mastromarino Sara, Boboridis Kostantinos, Robba Davide, Vlahovic Luka, Konings Rudy
European Commission, Joint Research Centre;
European Commission, Joint Research Centre; Energy Department, Politecnico di Milano; CEA Saclay.
J Vis Exp. 2017 Dec 14(130):54807. doi: 10.3791/54807.
Major and severe accidents have occurred three times in nuclear power plants (NPPs), at Three Mile Island (USA, 1979), Chernobyl (former USSR, 1986) and Fukushima (Japan, 2011). Research on the causes, dynamics, and consequences of these mishaps has been performed in a few laboratories worldwide in the last three decades. Common goals of such research activities are: the prevention of these kinds of accidents, both in existing and potential new nuclear power plants; the minimization of their eventual consequences; and ultimately, a full understanding of the real risks connected with NPPs. At the European Commission Joint Research Centre's Institute for Transuranium Elements, a laser-heating and fast radiance spectro-pyrometry facility is used for the laboratory simulation, on a small scale, of NPP core meltdown, the most common type of severe accident (SA) that can occur in a nuclear reactor as a consequence of a failure of the cooling system. This simulation tool permits fast and effective high-temperature measurements on real nuclear materials, such as plutonium and minor actinide-containing fission fuel samples. In this respect, and in its capability to produce large amount of data concerning materials under extreme conditions, the current experimental approach is certainly unique. For current and future concepts of NPP, example results are presented on the melting behavior of some different types of nuclear fuels: uranium-plutonium oxides, carbides, and nitrides. Results on the high-temperature interaction of oxide fuels with containment materials are also briefly shown.
核电站发生了三次重大和严重事故，分别是1979年美国三里岛事故、1986年前苏联切尔诺贝利事故和2011年日本福岛事故。在过去三十年里，全球一些实验室对这些事故的原因、动态过程和后果进行了研究。此类研究活动的共同目标是：在现有和潜在的新核电站中预防这类事故；将事故最终后果降至最低；最终，全面了解与核电站相关的实际风险。在欧盟委员会联合研究中心的超铀元素研究所，一个激光加热和快速辐射光谱高温测定设备被用于在小尺度上对核电站堆芯熔毁进行实验室模拟，堆芯熔毁是核反应堆因冷却系统故障可能发生的最常见的严重事故类型。这种模拟工具能够对钚和含次锕系元素的裂变燃料样本等真实核材料进行快速有效的高温测量。在这方面，以及在其能够生成大量关于极端条件下材料的数据方面，当前的实验方法无疑是独一无二的。针对当前和未来的核电站概念，给出了一些不同类型核燃料（铀钚氧化物、碳化物和氮化物）熔化行为的示例结果。还简要展示了氧化物燃料与安全壳材料高温相互作用的结果。
