(LWR OFF-NORMAL BEHAVIOUR INVESTIGATION) A Reactor Thermal-Hydraulic Safety Research Programme carried out by the Commission of the European Communities at the Ispra Site of the Joint Research Centre.

The Mozart analytical test program, conducted from 2005 to 2007, was dedicated to the study of oxidation in air of nuclear fuel cladding.

The DISCO-H test facility was set up to perform scaled experiments that simulate melt ejection scenarios under low system pressure in Severe Accidents in Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR).

The test section of the facility consists of a scaled-down model of VVER-440 steam generator, which has a bundle of 38 tubes with inlet and outlet chambers (hot and cold chamber, respectively), and a secondary side with the steam outlet line but without droplet separators and steam dryers.

The general experimental procedurewas to establish the desired composition of gases in 1-L glass flasks, optionally to add surface coupons, to irradiate the glass flasks at given dose rates until the desired doses were reached, and to subsequently determine the final air radiolysis products concentrations by an off-line method.

The STORM (Simplified Test On Resuspension Mechanism) facility was designed and operated by JRC-Ispra to work with high concentration of soluble and insoluble aerosol materials (up to 25 g/m3), a wide range of aerosol compositions, size distribution and density and high carrier gas and steam flow rate (about 1kg/s).

The PHEBUS FP (Fission Products) international research programme was conducted between 1988 and 2010. Its purpose was to improve the understanding of the phenomena occurring during a core meltdown accident in a light water reactor and to validate the computational software used to represent these phenomena in reactor safety evaluations.

The KROTOS test facility is a relatively small scale experimental installation dedicated to the study of:

Launched in 2007, the "Debris bed reflooding" (ex-PEARL) experimental research program aims to better understand the behaviour of steam and water flow in a porous medium composed of solid particles at very high temperature under conditions representative of a core melt accident (or severe accident).

The PREMIX experiments have been performed to study the premixing of sizable amounts of very hot oxidic melts with water when being released as a jet in a reasonably characterized way and with full optical access. Alumina at 2600 K from a thermite reaction was used to simulate the corium melt.

A research program on reflood of an overheated core and corresponding topics is running at KIT, including large scale bundle tests at IAM-WPT , various kinds of separate-effects tests at IAM-AWP , model development and code application.

The VULCANO facility is mainly composed of a furnace and a test section, which is thoroughly instrumented. In the experiments with prototypic material the furnace has the following characteristics: