Modeling and analysis of thermal-hydraulic response of uranium- aluminum reactor fuel plates under transient heatup conditions

A 3-D model to predict the thermal behavior of ANS (Advanced Neutron Source) fuel miniplates has been developed. Possibility of explosive boiling was considered, and it was concluded that the heating rates (existant in NSRR tests) are not large enough for this to occur. However, transient boiling effects were pronounced. Because of the complexity of transient pool boiling and the unavailability of experimental data for the situations studied, an approximation was made that predicted the data very well within the uncertainties present. If pool boiling from the miniplates had been assumed to be steady during the heating pulse, the experimental data would have been greatly overestimated. This shows the importance of considering the transient nature of heat transfer in analysis of reactivity excursion accidents. An additional contribution of this work is that it provided data on highly subcooled steady nucleate boiling from the cooling portion of the thermocouple traces.