Simulation of Performance of Centrifugal Circulators With Vaneless Diffuser for GCR Applications

Author(s):  
N. Tauveron

In the frame of the international forum GenIV, CEA has selected various innovative concepts of Gas cooled Nuclear Reactor. Among them, an indirect-cycle gas reactor is under consideration. Thermal hydraulic performances are a key issue for the design. For transient conditions and decay heat removal situations, the thermal hydraulic performance must remain as high as possible. In this context, all the transient situations, the incidental and accidental scenarii must be evaluated by a validated system code able to correctly describe, in particular, the thermalhydraulics of the whole plant. As concepts use a helium compressor to maintain the flow in the core, a special emphasis must be laid on compressor modelling. Centrifugal circulators with a vaneless diffuser have significant properties in term of simplicity, cost, ability to operate over a wide range of conditions. The objective of this paper is to present a dedicated description of centrifugal compressor, based on a one dimensional approach. This type of model requires various correlations as input data. The present contribution consists in establishing and validating the numerical simulations (including different sets of correlations) by comparison with representative experimental data. The results obtained show a qualitatively correct behaviour of the model compared to open literature cases of the gas turbine aircraft community and helium circulators of High Temperature Gas Reactors. Further work on modelling and validation are nevertheless needed to have a better confidence in the simulation predictions.

ROTASI ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Anwar Ilmar Ramadhan ◽  
Indra Setiawan ◽  
M. Ivan Satryo

Safety is an issue that is of considerable concern in the design, operation and development of a nuclear reactor. Therefore, the method of analysis used in all these activities should be thorough and reliable so as to predict a wide range of operating conditions of the reactor, both under normal operating conditions and in the event of an accident. Performance of heat transfer to the cooling of nuclear fuel, reactor safety is key. Poor heat removal performance would threaten the integrity of the fuel cladding which could further impact on the release of radioactive substances into the environment in an uncontrolled manner to endanger the safety of the reactor workers, the general public, and the environment. This study has the objective is to know is profile contour of fluid flow and the temperature distribution pattern of the cooling fluid is water (H2O) in convection in to SMR reactor with fuel sub reed arrangement of hexagonal in forced convection. In this study will be conducted simulations on the SMR reactor core used sub channel hexagonal using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) code. And the results of this simulation look more upward (vector of fluid flow) fluid temperature will be warm because the heat moves from the wall to the fluid heater. Axial direction and also looks more fluid away from the heating element temperature will be lower.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-121
Author(s):  
Vitaly Uzikov ◽  
Irina Uzikova

This paper presents the results of an analysis of a universal cooling system for the core of re- search reactors built on the passive principle of natural convection. A 3-D model, technologi- cal and design diagrams of the reactor installation are provided, along with examples of nu- merical evaluation of transients during the operation of the cooling circuit in normal and emergency modes to substantiate the possibility of using such a cooling system in research re- actors of small and medium power. The principal feature of the described passive system is the absence of not only active elements, such as circulation pumps and shut-off and control valves from the cooling circuit, but also of passive elements with moving parts, such as a check valve. The cooling circuit includes only vessels, piping and a heat exchanger. The absence of elements with mechanical moving parts can significantly reduce the likelihood of equipment failures and improve the reliability of such a cooling system while also reducing its cost. The versatility of the proposed system allows it to be used for a wide range of research reactor plants with various capacities, which are nowadays being developed designed to carry out programs in various areas of research and applied usages related to nuclear technologies.


Author(s):  
Md Rezouanul Kabir ◽  
Morozov A.V. ◽  
Md Saif Kabir

The mechanisms of boric acid mass transfer in a VVER-1200 reactor core are studied in this work in the event of a major circulatory pipeline rupture and loss of all AC power. The VVER-1200's passive core cooling technology is made up of two levels of hydro accumulators. They use boric acid solution with a concentration of 16 g H3BO3/kg H2O to control the reactivity. Because of the long duration of the accident process, the coolant with high boron content starts boiling and steam with low concentration of boric acid departs the core. So, conditions could arise in the reactor for possible accumulation and subsequent crystallization of boric acid, causing the core heat removal process to deteriorate. Calculations were carried out to estimate the likelihood of H3BO3 build-up and subsequent crystallization in the core of the VVER reactor. According to the calculations, during emergency the boric acid concentration in the reactor core is 0.153 kg/ kg and 0.158 kg/kg in both the events of solubility of steam and without solubility of steam respectively and it does not exceed the solubility limit which is about 0.415 kg/kg at water saturation temperature. No precipitation of boric acid occurs within this time during the whole emergency process. Therefore, findings of the study can be used to verify whether the process of decay heat removal is affected or not.


Author(s):  
D. A. Botelho ◽  
P. A. B. De Sampaio ◽  
M. L. Moreira ◽  
J. L. H. Faccini

A circuit of natural convection similar to the passive reactor heat removal systems of the AP600 reactor and of the APEX experiment was constructed in the Nuclear Engineering Institute located in Rio de Janeiro. In an attempt to improve usual numeric methods, it was developed a new Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) scheme to solve one-dimensional (1D) two-phase natural circulation transport equations. To compare the new scheme with other numeric methods, it was used the results of the two-phase experiment conducted at the University of Sa˜o Paulo (USP). It was compared the frequency and the amplitude of the temperature oscillations at several positions of the spatial domain during a two-phase heating transient. The results of the new method show a better agreement with the experiment than that obtained from the RELAP and the TRAC series of computer programs.


Author(s):  
John Joseph Norris ◽  
Richard D. Sawyer

This chapter summarizes the advancement of duoethnography throughout its fifteen-year history, employing examples from a variety of topics in education and social justice to provide a wide range of approaches that one may take when conducting a duoethnography. A checklist articulates what its cofounders consider the core elements of duoethnographies, additional features that may or may not be employed and how some studies purporting to be duoethnographies may not be so. The chapter indicates connections between duoethnography and a number of methodological concepts including the third space, the problematics of representation, feminist inquiry, and critical theory using published examples by several duoethnographers.


Author(s):  
Marios Patinios ◽  
James A. Scobie ◽  
Carl M. Sangan ◽  
J. Michael Owen ◽  
Gary D. Lock

In gas turbines, hot mainstream flow can be ingested into the wheel-space formed between stator and rotor disks as a result of the circumferential pressure asymmetry in the annulus; this ingress can significantly affect the operating life, performance, and integrity of highly stressed, vulnerable engine components. Rim seals, fitted at the periphery of the disks, are used to minimize ingress and therefore reduce the amount of purge flow required to seal the wheel-space and cool the disks. This paper presents experimental results from a new 1.5-stage test facility designed to investigate ingress into the wheel-spaces upstream and downstream of a rotor disk. The fluid-dynamically scaled rig operates at incompressible flow conditions, far removed from the harsh environment of the engine which is not conducive to experimental measurements. The test facility features interchangeable rim-seal components, offering significant flexibility and expediency in terms of data collection over a wide range of sealing flow rates. The rig was specifically designed to enable an efficient method of ranking and quantifying the performance of generic and engine-specific seal geometries. The radial variation of CO2 gas concentration, pressure, and swirl is measured to explore, for the first time, the flow structure in both the upstream and downstream wheel-spaces. The measurements show that the concentration in the core is equal to that on the stator walls and that both distributions are virtually invariant with radius. These measurements confirm that mixing between ingress and egress is essentially complete immediately after the ingested fluid enters the wheel-space and that the fluid from the boundary layer on the stator is the source of that in the core. The swirl in the core is shown to determine the radial distribution of pressure in the wheel-space. The performance of a double radial-clearance seal is evaluated in terms of the variation of effectiveness with sealing flow rate for both the upstream and the downstream wheel-spaces and is found to be independent of rotational Reynolds number. A simple theoretical orifice model was fitted to the experimental data showing good agreement between theory and experiment for all cases. This observation is of great significance as it demonstrates that the theoretical model can accurately predict ingress even when it is driven by the complex unsteady pressure field in the annulus upstream and downstream of the rotor. The combination of the theoretical model and the new test rig with its flexibility and capability for detailed measurements provides a powerful tool for the engine rim-seal designer.


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