2018 | AFC ACCOMPLISHMENTS 124 Collaboration with KIT provides first data verifying enhanced performance of FeCrAl assembly during a simulated loss of coolant accident. was performed in an atmosphere of argon and superheated steam. At the end of this test a single rod was extracted from the bundle to facilitate subsequent measurement of oxide thickness and other properties as desired. In the second phase, the conditions described above were repeated and the 1000C temperature maintained for 2000 seconds. Power was then increased until the cladding temperature reached 1500C (Fig 1). Measurable hydrogen production began to occur once cladding temperatures exceeded 1400C. A liquid water reflood was then performed at 9100 seconds, indicated in Figure 1 by the rapid drop in the FeCrAl temperature and power reduction. To date only preliminary analysis has been performed of the data collected during the test.The most notable outcomes are that no temperature excursion was observed during the high temperature test phase. Zirconium alloys such as ZIRLO will cause further heating of the core due to the exothermic oxidation reaction.This is shown in Figure 1, where the ZIRLO temperature can be seen to increase rapidly beginning at approximately 6500 seconds. This in turn accelerates hydrogen production, also seen in Figure 1.This behavior is not observed during the FeCrAl test. Hydrogen production is thereby greatly reduced for the FeCrAl cladding.The reference ZIRLO test produced 48 g of hydrogen, while the FeCrAl test produced only 9.4 g despite being subjected to nearly 2000 seconds of additional time above 1200C. Analysis of this data and examination of the microstructural evolutions of the cladding samples will proceed in FY19. Simulation of the QUENCH-19 test using MELCOR will also be performed to facilitate an improved understanding of the ability of existing accident performance codes to accurately predict the impact of non-zirconium cladding alloys on core behavior. These results will then be used to propose future QUENCH tests where conditions can be matched to those anticipated of FeCrAl during a LOCA for specific reactor designs.