Browsing by Subject "Bypass flow"
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Item CFD Analysis of Core Bypass Flow and Crossflow in the Prismatic Very High Temperature Gas-cooled Nuclear Reactor(2012-12-13) Wang, Huhu 1985-Very High Temperature Rector (VHTR) had been designated as one of those promising reactors for the Next Generation (IV) Nuclear Plant (NGNP). For a prismatic core VHTR, one of the most crucial design considerations is the bypass flow and crossflow effect. The bypass flow occurs when the coolant flow into gaps between fuel blocks. These gaps are formed as a result of carbon expansion and shrinkage induced by radiations and manufacturing and installation errors. Hot spots may appear in the core if the large portion of the coolant flows into bypass gaps instead of coolant channels in which the cooling efficiency is much higher. A preliminary three dimensional steady-state CFD analysis was performed with commercial code STARCCM+ 6.04 to investigate the bypass flow and crossflow phenomenon in the prismatic VHTR core. The k-? turbulence model was selected because of its robustness and low computational cost with respect to a decent accuracy for varied flow patterns. The wall treatment used in the present work is two-layer all y+ wall treatment to blend the wall laws to estimate the shear stress. Uniform mass flow rate was chose as the inlet condition and the outlet condition was zero gauge pressure outlet. Grid independence study was performed and the results indicated that the discrepancy of the solution due to the mesh density was within 2% of the bypass flow fraction. The computational results showed that the bypass flow fraction was around 12%. Furthermore, the presence of the crossflow gap resulted in a up to 28% reduction of the coolant in the bypass flow gap while mass flow rate of coolant in coolant channels increased by around 5%. The pressure drop at the inlet due to the sudden contraction in area could be around 1kpa while the value was about 180 Pa around the crossflow gap region. The error analysis was also performed to evaluate the accumulated errors from the process of discretization and iteration. It was found that the total error was around 4% and the variation for the bypass flow fraction was within 1%.Item Preliminary Study of Bypass Flow in Prismatic Core of Very High Temperature Reactor Using Small-Scale Model(2012-11-29) Kanjanakijkasem, Worasit 1975-Very high temperature reactor (VHTR) is one of the candidates for Generation IV reactor. It can be continuously operated with average core outlet temperature between 900?C and 950?C, so the core temperature is one of the key features in the design of VHTR. Bypass flow in the prismatic core of VHTR is not a designed feature but it is inevitable due to the combination of several causes and considerably affects the core temperature. Although bypass flow has been studied extensively, the current status of research on thermal/hydraulic core flow of VHTR is far from completion. Present study is the starting of bypass flow characteristic investigation using small-scale model that will fulfill understandings of bypass flow in the prismatic core of VHTR. Bypass flow experiments are conducted by using three small-scale models of prismatic blocks. They are stacked in a test section to form bypass gaps of single-layer blocks as exist in prismatic core of VHTR. Three bypass gap widths set in air and water flow experiments are 6.1, 4.4 and 2.7 mm. Experimental data shows that bypass flow fraction depends on bypass gap width and downstream condition of prismatic blocks, while pressure drop of flow through bypass gaps depends on bypass gap width only. Bypass flow simulations are performed by using STAR-CCM+ software after meshing parameters were determined from simulation exercises and grid independent study. Three turbulence models are employed in all bypass flow simulations which are stopped at physical time of 100 seconds marching by implicit unsteady scheme. Bypass flow fraction, coolant channel Reynolds number and bypass gap Reynolds number from air flow and water flow simulations with 6.1-mm bypass gap width are very close to experimental data. This is because bypass flow fractions from experiments at this bypass gap width are matched in construction of the simulation models. Discrepancies between results from simulations and experiments for remaining gaps increase when bypass gap width becomes smaller. Finally, guidelines for bypass flow experiments and simulations are drawn from the data in present study to improve bypass flow study in the future.