The phebus fission product project

Abstract A new facility is being built at the Phebus test reactor in Cadarache, France, for investigations into phenomena of fuel damage and fission product (FP) release under severe power reactor accident conditions, as part of a large international research program. Phebus FP simulates core, cooling system and containment of an accidented reactor by appropriate scaled-down experimental components. The test fuel, with 25 to 30 GWd/t burnup, is re-irradiated in situ and then overheated up to UO 2 melting. Fission products and other aerosols are swept through the primary pipework into the containment vessel, by hot steam and hydrogen. Experimental instrumentation and posttest analyses will enable the following main phenomena to be studied: structural material and fuel dislocation, final fuel state; release, chemical form and transport/depletion of fission products in the facility, particularly aerosol physics, including nonfission product material and iodine chemistry in terms of volatile species formation through radiolysis, reactions with organic material, aerosol-vapor reactions, etc. Design and development of equipment and experimental procedures are supported by modeling and code calculations with the scope of predicting the experimental sequence, on one hand, and to prepare code validation through the results, on the other hand. More than 25 organisation from Europe and overseas, collaborate in the scientific and technological development of the Phebus FP program. The first in-pile test is planned for spring 1993, and five subsequent experiments are scheduled to follow in yearly intervals. This paper describes facility and support activities, and highlights a number of nuclear materials aspects involved.