Experimental and computational investigation of LBE–water interaction in LIFUS 5 facility

The interaction between heavy liquid metal, such as LBE, and pressurized water has been analyzed at ENEA Brasimone Research Centre, in order to investigate the evolution of this phenomenon over a wide range of conditions. The study includes an experimental campaign on LIFUS5facility and a numerical simulation activity performed with SIMMER III code. The first test of the experimental program was carried out injecting water at 7 MPa and 235 °C in a reaction vessel containing LBE at 350 °C. A pressurization up to 8 MPa was observed in the test section during the short term (about 2 s) of the transient. In the post-test analysis performed with SIMMER III code, two different geometrical models were developed in order to reproduce in the best manner the experimental results and, therefore, to confirm the code's capabilities of reproducing the phenomenology of the LBE–water interaction. The data calculated through both models agreed in a good way with the experimental results, despite the necessary simplifications adopted in the models due to the 2D features of the code.