Consequences of Different Types of Contact Between Water and Molten Steel: The ANAIS Experiments

In the ANAIS experiments, water was injected as a jet or a spray at a given temperature and a given flow rate onto a superheated (~1600°C) molten steel layer for an imposed value of the heat rate delivered to the steel layer by induction heating. At the beginning of a test, water was injected during a few seconds with a high flow rate. Thereafter, the flow rate was decreased to evacuate the thermal power under steady-state conditions. The heat generation rate in the metal was maintained during the water injection at ~1 MW/m², which represents a typical reactor situation. The test results showed that the steel-water heat transfer led to different final situations depending on the injection mode and water velocity. In addition, the water-cooling power was rather high at the very beginning of the transient and comparable to the heat rate delivered to the metal layer in steady-state conditions. Also, it was observed that no steam explosion occurred in any case, and that a solid layer always formed at the steel free-surface.