Numerical Study on the Main Coolant Pump of Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor

Author(s):  
Sungho Ko ◽  
Yeon-tae Kim

A numerical study was conducted to predict the performance curve of a downscaled model of the main coolant pump for a sodium-cooled fast reactor and to reduce the head loss by the optimization of the diffuser blade. The ANSYS CFX program was utilized to obtain flow characteristics inside the pump as well as the overall pressure rise across the pump operating on- and off-design points. Computational domain was divided into several blocks to achieve high grid quality effectively and 7.5 million nodes were used totally to resolve small leakage flows as well as the flow inside the rotating impeller. The corresponding experiment was conducted to validate CFD computed results. The comparison between the CFD and experimental data shows excellent agreement in terms of mass flow rate and head rise on and near design operating points. The DOE (design of experiments) and RSM (response surface method)[1] were utilized to reduce the head loss by the diffuser blade in the pump. The diffuser blade was defined as four geometric parameters for DOE. The analysis of 25 cases was made to solve the output parameters for all design points which are defined by the DOE. RSM was fitting the output parameter as a function of the input parameters using regression analysis techniques. The optimized model increased the total pump head on the design point and the low mass flow rate point, but total pump head on 130% of operating mass flow rate was reduced than the initial model.

Author(s):  
Hemant Kumar ◽  
Chetan S. Mistry

Abstract The Supercritical carbon-dioxide Brayton cycle main attraction is due to the Supercritical characteristic of the working fluid, carbon-dioxide (SCO2). Some of the advantages of using SCO2 are relatively low turbine inlet temperature, the compression work will be low, and the system will be compact due to the variation of thermodynamic properties (like density, and specific heat ratio) of SCO2 near the critical point. SCO2 behave more like liquid when its state is near the critical point (Total Pressure = 7.39 MPa, Total Temperature = 305 K), operating compressor inlet near critical point can minimize compression work. For present study the centrifugal compressor was designed to operate at 75,000 rpm with pressure ratio (P.R) = 1.8 and mass flow rate = 3.53 kg/s as available from Sandai report. Meanline design for centrifugal compressor with SCO2 properties was done. The blade geometry was developed using commercial CAD Ansys Bladegen. The flow domain was meshed using Ansys TurboGrid. ANSYS CFX was used as a solver for present numerical study. The thermodynamic properties of SCO2 were imported from the ANSYS flow material library using SCO2.RPG [NIST thermal physics properties of fluid system]. In order to ensure the change in flow physics the mesh independence study was also conducted. The present paper discuss about the performance and flow field study targeting different mass flow rates as exit boundary condition. The comparison of overall performance (Pressure Ratio, the Blade loading, Stage efficiency and Density variation) was done with three different mass flow rates. The designed and simulated centrifugal compressor meets the designed pressure rise requirement. The variation of mass flow rate on performance of centrifugal compressor was tend to be similar to conventional centrifugal compressor. The paper discusses about the effect of variation in density, specific heat ratio and pressure of SCO2 with different mass flow outlet condition. The performance map of numerical study were validated with experiment results and found in good agreement with experimental results. The change in flow properties within the rotor flow passage are found to be interesting and very informative for future such centrifugal compressor design for special application of SCO2 Brayton cycle. 80% mass flow rate has given better results in terms of aerodynamic performance. Abrupt change in thermodynamic properties was observed near impeller inlet region. Strong density variations are observed at compressor inlet.


Author(s):  
Souheyla Khaldi ◽  
A. Nabil Korti ◽  
Said Abboudi

AbstractThis article provides numerical study of the solar chimney (SC) assembled with a reversed absorber and packed bed for the indirect-mode solar dryer. The present study was designed to determine the effects of using the SC in three configuration and physical proprieties of the packed (thickness and porosity) on the dynamic and thermal behavior of airflow. The results reveal that (1) using SC without storage material can increase the maximum mass flow rate up to 5%. However, integrating a storage material in the SC can improve the mass flow rate up to 32% during nighttime; (2) the use of a packed bed can decrease the crops temperature fluctuation until about 76% and increase the operating time of the solar dryer up to 12.5 hours rather than 10 hours in the case without packed bed; (3) increasing the porosity from 0.1 to 0.8 can increase the maximum temperature by about 10°C.


Author(s):  
Gerald J. Micklow ◽  
Subir Roychoudhury ◽  
H. Lee Nguyen ◽  
Michael C. Cline

A rich burn/quick mix/lean burn (RQL) combustor concept for reducing pollutant emissions is currently under investigation at the NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC). A numerical study was performed to investigate the chemically reactive flow with liquid spray injection for the RQL combustor. The RQL combustor consists of an airblast atomizer fuel injector, a rich burn section, a converging connecting pipe, a quick mix zone, a diverging connecting pipe and a lean combustion zone. For computational efficiency, the combustor was split into two sub systems, i.e. the fuel nozzle/rich burn section and the quick mix/lean burn section. The current study investigates the effect of varying the mass flow rate split between the swirler passages for an equivalence ratio of 2.0 on fuel distribution, temperature distribution, and emissions for the fuel nozzle/rich burn section of an RQL combustor. The input conditions used in the study were chosen based on tests completed at LeRC. It is seen that optimizing these parameters can substantially improve combustor performance and reduce combustor emissions. The optimal mass flow rate split for reducing NOx emissions based on the numerical study was the same as found by experiment at LeRC.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meysam Sahafzadeh ◽  
Larry W. Kostiuk ◽  
Seth B. Dworkin

Laminar flamelets are often used to model premixed turbulent combustion. The libraries of rates of conversion from chemical to thermal enthalpies used for flamelets are typically based on counter-flow, stained laminar planar flames under steady conditions. The current research seeks further understanding of the effect of stretch on premixed flames by considering laminar flame dynamics in a cylindrically-symmetric outward radial flow geometry (i.e., inwardly propagating flame). This numerical model was designed to study the flame response when the flow and scalar fields align (i.e., no tangential strain on the flame) while the flame either expands (positive stretch) or contracts (negative stretch, which is a case that has been seldom explored) radially. The transient response of a laminar premixed flame has been investigated by applying a sinusoidal variation of mass flow rate at the inlet boundary with different frequencies to compare key characteristics of a steady unstretched flame to the dynamics of an unsteady stretched flame. An energy index (EI), which is the integration of the source term in the energy equation over all control volumes in the computational domain, was selected for the comparison. The transient response of laminar premixed flames, when subjected to positive and negative stretch, results in amplitude decrease and phase shift increase with increasing frequency. Other characteristics, such as the deviation of the EI at the mean mass flow rate between when the flame is expanding and contracting, are nonmonotonic with frequency. Also, the response of fuel lean flames is more sensitive to the frequency of the periodic stretching compared to a stoichiometric flame. An analysis to seek universality of transient flame responses across lean methane-air flames of different equivalence ratios (i.e., 1.0 to 0.7) using Damköhler Numbers (i.e., the ratio of a flow to chemical time scales) had limited success.


Author(s):  
AmirMahdi Tahsini ◽  
Seyed Saeid Nabavi

The response of the solid fuel ramjet to the imposed excitations of the ambient pressure is investigated using full part computation of the system including the intake, combustion chamber, and exhaust nozzle. The finite volume solver of the turbulent reacting compressible flow is used to simulate the flow field, where two grid blocks are considered for discretizing the computational domain. Both impulsive and oscillatory excitations are imposed to predict the response of the solid fuel mass flow rate. The results demonstrate that strong fuel flow overshoot occurs in the case of sudden impulsive excitation which is omitted for gradual impulsive excitations. In addition, the oscillatory excitations eventually lead to regular oscillatory response with frequencies similar to the imposed excitations and decrease the average fuel mass flow rate independent of the excitation frequency. But the amplitude of the response depends on the excitation frequency and amplification occurs in some frequencies. This behavior is not related to the combustion instabilities and is similar to the L-star instability in the solid rocket motors. In the design and analysis of the solid fuel ramjets, the coupling of the flight dynamics and the engine performance must be considered, and this study is the first step of such complete methodology to have more accurate predictions.


2011 ◽  
Vol 110-116 ◽  
pp. 3657-3662
Author(s):  
S. Alikhani ◽  
A. Behzadmehr ◽  
S. Mirmasoumi

Fully developed laminar mixed convection of a nanofluid (water/Al2O3) in a horizontal curved tube is numerically investigated. Three-dimensional elliptic governing equations have been solved to show how nanoparticle concentration affects on thermal and hydrodynamic parameters while these parameters are impressed by centrifugal and buoyancy forces under constant mass flow rate and heat flux. Comparisons with previously published experimental works on horizontal curved tubes show good agreements between the results. Results which are obtained using the two – phase mixture model indicate that adding the nanoparticles causes changes in the properties of nanofluid and finally increases the temperature of the flow. Furthermore, increasing nanoparticles volume fraction at first augments the heat transfer coefficient of nanofluid and then, for higher concentration of particles, decreases this thermal parameter of nanofluid.


Author(s):  
Erfan Niazi ◽  
M. J. Mahjoob ◽  
Ardeshir Bangian

Cavitation in pumps is one of the most important causes of damage to pumps impellers/inducers. A numerical model is developed here to simulate the pump hydraulics in different conditions. Experiments are also conducted to validate the computer simulations. To verify the numerical model, the h–m˙ (head versus mass flow rate) of the model is compared with the experimental data. The system is then run under cavitation state. Two methods are applied to monitor the cavitation threshold: first by using stroboscope and observing cavitation bubbles through the transparent casing of the pump and second by checking the NPSHA value for cavitation based on ISO3555. The paper then compares the experimental and numerical results to find the strengths and weaknesses of the numerical model.


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sukmanto Dibyo ◽  
Endiah Puji Hastuti ◽  
Ign. Djoko Irianto

Reaktor Riset Inovatif (RRI) merupakan jenis MTR (Material Testing Reactor) yang dipersiapkan ke depan sebagai desain reaktor baru. Daya RRI telah ditetapkan dari perhitungan neutronik dan termohidrolika teras yaitu 50 MW termal. Reaktor bertekanan 8 kgf/cm2 dan laju aliran massa pendingin primer 900 kg/s. Tantangan yang penting dalam menindak lanjuti desain reaktor ini adalah analisis desain pada sistem pendingin. Makalah ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis desain proses sistem pendingin utama reaktor RRI daya 50 MW (RRI-50) dengan menggunakan program Chemcad 6.1.4. Dalam analisis ini dilakukan perhitungan neraca massa dan energi (mass/energy balances) pada sistem pendingin primer dan sekunder sebagai pendingin utama. Masing-masing sistem pendingin tersebut terdiri dari 2 jalur beroperasi secara paralel dan 1 jalur redundansi. Disamping itu untuk desain termal unit komponen telah dianalisis dengan program RELAP5, frenchcreek dan Metoda Analitik. Hasil analisis yang diperoleh adalah desain diagram sistem pendingin yang mencakup data parameter entalpi, temperatur, tekanan dan laju aliran massa pendingin untuk masing-masing jalur. Adapun hasil desain unit komponen utama pada RRI-50 adalah tangki tunda dengan volume 51,5 m3, 2 unit pompa sentrifugal dan 1 unit pompa cadangan pada pendingin primer daya 141 kW/pompa dan pendingin sekunder daya 206 kW/pompa, 2 unit penukar panas tipe shell-tube dengan koefisien termal overall 1377 W/m2.oC dan 4 unit menara pendingin yang mampu melepaskan panas ke udara dengan desain temperatur approach 5,0 oC dan temperatur range 9,0 oC. Desain sistem pendingin reaktor RRI-50 ini telah menetapkan parameter operasi sistem pendingin yaitu temperatur, tekanan dan laju aliran massa pendingin dengan mempertimbangkan tuntutan aspek keselamatan teras reaktor sehingga desain temperatur maksimum pendingin masuk ke teras 44,5 oC. Kata kunci : RRI 50 MW, desain sistem pendingin, program Chemcad 6.1.4   Innovative Research Reactor RRI is a type of MTR (Material Testing Reactor), which is being prepared in the future as a design of new reactor. The power of RRI has been determined based on the core thermalhydraulic and neutronic calculation, which is 50 MWt. The reactor pressure is 8 kgf/cm 2 and coolant mass flow rate is 900 kg/s. The important challenge in the follow up of this reactor design is the design analysis of cooling system. The purpose of this study is to analyze the design of RRI reactor main coolant system at the power of 50 MWt (RRI-50) using ChemCAD 6.1.4. In this analysis the mass and energy balances at the primary and secondary cooling system are calculated as main coolant. Each of the cooling system consists of two lines operating in parallel and redundancy lines. Besides that, the thermal design of the component units have been analyzed using RELAP5, FrenchCreek and Analytical Methods. The analyses result obtained is a design of cooling system diagram which includes parameter of enthalpy, temperature, pressure and coolant mass flow rate of each line. Meanwhile, design result of main component unit are delay tank of 51.5 m3 volume, 2 unit centrifugal pumps and 1 unit stand-by pump for the primary coolant pump each of 141 kW power and secondary coolant pump each of 206 kW power, 2 unit of shell-tube heat exchanger with overall thermal coefficient of 1377 W/m2.oC and 4 unit cooling tower that capable to release the heat to the air at approach temperature of 5,0 oC and range temperature of 9,0 oC. design of reactor coolant system RRI-50 has decided the operating parameters of cooling system are temperature, pressure and mass flow rate by considering into the demands of the safety aspects of the reactor core therefore design of maximum coolant temperature to the reactor core is 44,5 oC. Keywords : RRI 50MW,  design of cooling system, program Chemcad 6.1.4.


Author(s):  
Nail G. Musakaev ◽  
Stanislav L. Borodin ◽  
Marat K. Khasanov

Natural gas is one of the main energy carriers, for example, in 2014 it accounted for about 22% of the world’s electricity production. The main component of natural gas is methane (77-99%). The largest reserves of methane are concentrated in gas hydrates; according to different sources, their total volume twice exceeds the magnitude of the traditional recoverable reserves of methane. Thus, given the increasing demand and the largest amount compared with other fossil fuels, methane, extracted from gas hydrates, is the most promising source of energy. And for the effective extraction of methane from gas hydrate deposits, theoretical studies are needed.<br> In this paper we consider the problem of gas hydrate decomposition to gas and ice during the gas extraction from the hydrate-containing deposit initially saturated with methane and its hydrate. To solve this problem, we constructed the mathematical model of non-isothermal filtration of an imperfect gas with account of the formation or decomposition of this gas’ hydrate. On the basis of this model, the numerical study of the influence of gas mass flow rate on the dynamics of decomposition of the hydrate was made. It shows that in the case of negative initial temperatures of the reservoir, the dissociation of the gas hydrate will always occur to gas and ice. In this case, regimes of dissociation of the hydrate with a frontal surface or a volume region of phase transitions are possible. It is established that an increase in the mass flow rate of gas extraction first leads to the decomposition of the hydrate on a frontal surface, and then in a volume zone. A further increase in the gas mass flow rate leads to an increase in the length of the volume zone and an increase in the amount of the hydrate decomposed therein.


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