Heat flux distribution from a volumetrically heated pool with high Rayleigh number

Experimental results are presented on the heat flux distribution at the boundaries of volumetrically heated pools at high enough Rayleigh numbers to be directly relevant to the problem of retention of a molten corium pool inside the lower head of a reactor pressure vessel. The experimental facility, named COPO, is a 2-dimensional “slice”, Joule-heated and geometrically similar in shape (torispherical at 1/2-scale) to the lower head of a VVER-440 reactor. The results show that: the heat flux on the side wall (vertical portion) is essentially uniform; the downward heat flux strongly depends on position along the curved wall; and average fluxes on the side in the downward direction are in agreement with existing correlations, but somewhat underestimated in the upward direction. For the shape considered, the heat flux along the lower curved wall seems to be independent of the presence and extent of the liquid pool (contained by the vertical sidewalls) portion above it.