Numerical Investigation of Mass Mixing in the Reactor Core of a Pebble Bed HTGR

Author(s):  
Wei Lu ◽  
Xiaowei Li ◽  
Xinxin Wu

In the reactor core of a pebble bed HTGR, fuel pebbles are in random arrangement. The coolant flow passages are complicated. Under the air and water ingress accident conditions, the partially enriched oxidizing gas corrodes the fuel pebbles by oxidation reaction. How the oxidizing gases (oxygen and water vapor) diffuse in the pebble bed will greatly influence the oxidation process. Analysis of the mass mixing is important for analyzing the fuel element graphite corrosion and safety of HTGR. In this paper, a three-dimensional simple cubic structure packed cells of pebble bed core model with surface contact method was established. The flow, and mass mixing processes were numerically and theoretically studied using numerical simulation and porous media methods. The effects of molecular diffusion, turbulent diffusion and mass dispersion on mass mixing effect were discussed respectively.

Author(s):  
Yujia Liu ◽  
Sifan Peng ◽  
Nan Gui ◽  
Xingtuan Yang ◽  
Jiyuan Tu ◽  
...  

Abstract The pebbles flow is a fundamental issue for both academic investigation and engineering application in reactor core design and safety analysis. In general, experimental methods including spiral X-ray tomography and refractive index matched scanning technique (RIMS) are applied to obtain the identification of particles’ positions within a three-dimensional pebble bed. However, none of the above methods can perform global bed particles’ position identification in a dynamically discharging pebble bed, and the corresponding experimental equipment is difficult to access due to the complication and high expense. In this research, the experimental study is conducted to observe the gravity driven discharging process in the quasi two-dimensional silos by making use of the high-speed camera and the uniform backlight. A mathematical morphology-based method is applied to the pre-processing of the captured results. After being increased the gray value gradient by the threshold segmentation, the edges of the particles are identified and smoothed by the Sobel algorithm and the morphological opening operation. The particle centroid coordinates are identified according to the Hough circle transformation of the edges. For the whole pebble bed, the self-programmed process has a particle recognition accuracy of more than 99% and a particle centroid position deviation of less than 3%, which can accurately obtain the physical positions of all particles in the entire dynamically discharge process. By analyzing the position evolution of individual particles in consecutive images, velocity field and motion events of particles are observed. The discharging profiles of 5 conditions with different exit are analyzed in this experiment. The results make a contribution to improving the understanding of the mechanism of pebbles flow in nuclear engineering.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Young Hoon Jo ◽  
Seonghyuk Hong ◽  
Seong Yeon Jo ◽  
Yoon Mi Kwon

Abstract Three-dimensional (3D) digital technology is an essential conservation method that complements the traditional restoration technique of cultural artifacts. In this study, 3D scanning, virtual restoration modeling, and 3D printing were used as a noncontact approach for restoring a damaged stone-seated Bodhisattva (stone Buddha statue). First, a 3D model with an average point density of 0.2 mm was created by integrating the fixed high-precision scanning of the exterior and the handheld mid-precision scanning of the interior excavated hole. Using a 3D deterioration map of the stone Buddha statue, the area of the missing parts was measured to be 400.1 cm2 (5.5% of the total area). Moreover, 257.1 cm2 (64.2% of the missing part area) of four parts, including the head, surrounding area of the Baekho, right ear, and right eye, for which symmetry was applicable for modeling or there could be ascertainable historical evidence for the total missing parts, was selected for restoration. The virtual restoration of the missing parts of the stone Buddha statue was performed using a haptic modeling system in the following order. First, the location of the three fragments detached from the head was determined. Next, a reference model was selected, and its symmetrization and modification with respect to the original model were conducted. Further, estimation modeling and outer shape description were achieved through historical research and consultation with experts. The heuristic-based assembly suitability of the created virtual restoration model (461 cm3) was verified by design mockup printing and digital–analog simulation. In particular, to address assembly interference, the interface surface was modified and reprocessed several times. Accordingly, the volume of the final design mockup decreased by 5.2% (437 cm3). Photopolymerization 3D printing technology was used for the actual restoration of the stone Buddha statue, and considering the surface roughness, the layer thickness of the material used for restoration was set at 0.10 mm. Finally, the surface of the printed output was colored to prevent yellowing and joined to the missing parts of the stone Buddha statue. This study presents a remarkable case of shifting from the traditional manual-contact method to the contactless digital method for restoring artifacts and is expected to largely contribute to increasing the usability of digital technologies in the restoration of cultural artifacts.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 4981
Author(s):  
Andreas Tausendfreund ◽  
Dirk Stöbener ◽  
Andreas Fischer

In the concept of the process signature, the relationship between a material load and the modification remaining in the workpiece is used to better understand and optimize manufacturing processes. The basic prerequisite for this is to be able to measure the loads occurring during the machining process in the form of mechanical deformations. Speckle photography is suitable for this in-process measurement task and is already used in a variety of ways for in-plane deformation measurements. The shortcoming of this fast and robust measurement technique based on image correlation techniques is that out-of-plane deformations in the direction of the measurement system cannot be detected and increases the measurement error of in-plane deformations. In this paper, we investigate a method that infers local out-of-plane motions of the workpiece surface from the decorrelation of speckle patterns and is thus able to reconstruct three-dimensional deformation fields. The implementation of the evaluation method enables a fast reconstruction of 3D deformation fields, so that the in-process capability remains given. First measurements in a deep rolling process show that dynamic deformations underneath the die can be captured and demonstrate the suitability of the speckle method for manufacturing process analysis.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamires K. Oishi ◽  
Jorge A. W. Gut

Abstract Continuous pasteurization of liquid foods has to provide the desired lethality level to guarantee food safety with minimum degradation of quality attributes (sensorial and nutritional characteristics) and high energy efficiency. To optimize quality and cost, a thermal process should be modeled considering flow, heat transfer and mass dispersion principles; however, flow through helical tubes and microwave heating require a complex 3D multiphysics approach. Herein a simplified 2D approach is presented to model a hybrid pasteurization unit with conventional and microwave heating under laminar flow to predict axial and radial distributions of temperature and residual activity of a microorganism or enzyme. A study case of 20 °Brix mango puree (power law fluid) processing is used to test the model based on an existing pilot plant unit. Results were useful to compare conventional and microwave heating regarding the process sterilization value and model can be used for process analysis, design and optimization.


Author(s):  
Tomáš Czakoj ◽  
Evžen Losa

Three-dimensional Monte Carlo code KENO-VI of SCALE-6.2.2 code system was applied for criticality calculation of the LR-0 reactor core. A central module placed in the center of the core was filled by graphite, lithium fluoride-beryllium fluoride (FLIBE), and lithium fluoride-sodium fluoride (FLINA) compounds. The multiplication factor was obtained for all cases using both ENDF/B-VII.0 and ENDF/B-VII.1 nuclear data libraries. Obtained results were compared with benchmark calculations in the MCNP6 using ENDF/B-VII.0 library. The results of KENO-VI calculations are found to be in good agreement with results obtained by the MCNP6. The discrepancies are typically within tens of pcm excluding the case with the FLINA filling. Sensitivities and uncertainties of the reference case with no filling were determined by a continuos-energy version of the TSUNAMI sequence of SCALE-6.2.2. The obtained uncertainty in multiplication factor due to the uncertainties in nuclear data is about 650 pcm with ENDF/B-VII.1.


2014 ◽  
Vol 488-489 ◽  
pp. 589-592
Author(s):  
Min Tan

Inverted siphon structure is a common water conveyance buildings, computer as a efficient computational tool is used, this paper adopt finite element method to carry out three-dimensional finite element simulation analysis for Dahedong inverted siphon structure. Deducing variation law of the inverted siphons stress and displacement in construction process and operating process. Analysis results further verified that design scheme is reasonable and safe, it has certain application value.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Shiyan Sun ◽  
Youjie Zhang ◽  
Yanhua Zheng

In pebble-bed high temperature gas-cooled reactor, gaps widely exist between graphite blocks and carbon bricks in the reactor core vessel. The bypass helium flowing through the gaps affects the flow distribution of the core and weakens the effective cooling of the core by helium, which in turn affects the temperature distribution and the safety features of the reactor. In this paper, the thermal hydraulic analysis models of HTR-10 with bypass flow channels simulated at different positions are designed based on the flow distribution scheme of the original core models and combined with the actual position of the core bypass flow. The results show that the bypass coolant flowing through the reflectors enhances the heat transfer of the nearby components efficiently. The temperature of the side reflectors and the carbon bricks is much lower with more side bypass coolant. The temperature distribution of the central region in the pebble bed is affected by the bypass flow positions slightly, while that of the peripheral area is affected significantly. The maximum temperature of the helium, the surface, and center of the fuel elements rises as the bypass flow ratio becomes larger, while the temperature difference between them almost keeps constant. When the flow ratio of each part keeps constant, the maximum temperature almost does not change with different bypass flow positions.


Author(s):  
Jing Chen ◽  
Dalin Zhang ◽  
Suizheng Qiu ◽  
Kui Zhang ◽  
Mingjun Wang ◽  
...  

As the first developmental step of the sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) in China, the pool-type China Experimental Fast Reactor (CEFR) is equipped with the openings and inter-wrapper space in the core, which act as an important part of the decay heat removal system. The accurate prediction of coolant flow in the reactor core calls for complete three-dimensional calculations. In the present study, an investigation of thermal-hydraulic behaviors in a 180° full core model similar to that of CEFR was carried out using commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. The actual geometries of the peripheral core baffle, fluid channels and narrow inter-wrapper gap were built up, and numerous subassemblies (SAs) were modeled as the porous medium with appropriate resistance and radial power distribution. First, the three-dimensional flow and temperature distributions in the full core under normal operating condition are obtained and quantitatively analyzed. And then the effect of inter-wrapper flow (IWF) on heat transfer performance is evaluated. In addition, the detailed flow path and direction in local inter-wrapper space including the internal and outlet regions are captured. This work can provide some valuable understanding of the core thermal-hydraulic phenomena for the research and design of SFRs.


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