Supercritical Natural Circulation Loop

Author(s):  
Tanuj Srivastava ◽  
Pranab Sutradhar ◽  
Milan Krishna Singha Sarkar ◽  
Dipankar Narayan Basu

Supercritical natural circulation loop is a compelling technology for cooling of modern nuclear reactors, which promises enhanced thermal-hydraulic performance in a simple design. Being a new concept, related knowledge base is relatively thin and involves several conflicting theories and controversies. The chapter summarizes the observation till date, starting from the very fundamentals. The phenomenon of natural circulation under steady state condition and suitability of supercritical medium as working fluid are discussed in detail. Different methods of analyses, including analytical, simple 1-d numerical, and multidimensional computational codes, as well as experimental, are elucidated. A comprehensive discussion is presented about the effect of various geometric and operating parameters on the system behavior, from both thermal-hydraulic and stability point of view. Finally, a few recommendations are included about the operation of such loops and future direction of research.

Author(s):  
Dipankar Narayan Basu ◽  
Milan Krishna Singha Sarkar

Supercritical natural circulation loop is a compelling technology for cooling of modern nuclear reactors, which promises enhanced thermalhydraulic performance in a simple design. Being a new concept, related knowledge base is relatively thin and involves several conflicting theories and controversies. Present chapter summarizes the observation till date, starting from the very fundamentals. The phenomenon of natural circulation and suitability of supercritical medium as working fluid are discussed in details. Different methods of analyses, including analytical, simple 1-D numerical and multidimensional computational codes, as well as experimental, are elucidated. A comprehensive discussion is presented about the effect of various geometric and operating parameters on the system behavior, from both thermalhydraulic and stability point of view. Finally, a few recommendations are included about the operation of such loops and future direction of research.


Author(s):  
C. J. Ho ◽  
Chi-Ming Lai

Experiments were conducted to investigate the heat transfer characteristics of water-based suspensions of phase change nanocapsules in a natural circulation loop with mini-channel heat sinks and heat sources. A total of 23 and 34 rectangular mini-channels, each with width 0.8 mm, depth 1.2 mm, length 50 mm and hydraulic diameter 0.96 mm, were evenly placed on the copper blocks as the heat source and heat sink, respectively. The adiabatic sections of the circulation loop were constructed using PMMA tubes with an outer diameter of 6 mm and an inner diameter of 4 mm, which were fabricated and assembled to construct a rectangular loop with a height of 630 mm and a width of 220 mm. Using a core material of n-eicosane and a shell of urea-formaldehyde resin, the phase change material nanocapsules of mean particle size 150 nm were fabricated successfully and then dispersed in pure water as the working fluid to form the water-based suspensions with mass fractions of the nanocapsules in the range 0.1–1 wt.%. The results clearly indicate that water-based suspensions of phase change nanocapsules can markedly enhance the heat transfer performance of the natural circulation loop considered.


Author(s):  
Hae-Yong Jeong ◽  
Kwi-Seok Ha ◽  
Won-Pyo Chang ◽  
Yong-Bum Lee ◽  
Dohee Hahn ◽  
...  

The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) is developing a Generation IV sodium-cooled fast reactor design equipped with a passive decay heat removal circuit (PDRC), which is a unique safety system in the design. The performance of the PDRC system is quite important for the safety in a simple system transient and also in an accident condition. In those situations, the heat generated in the core is transported to the ambient atmosphere by natural circulation of the PDRC loop. It is essential to investigate the performance of its heat removal capability through experiments for various operational conditions. Before the main experiments, KAERI is performing numerical studies for an evaluation of the performance of the PDRC system. First, the formation of a stable natural circulation is numerically simulated in a sodium test loop. Further, the performance of its heat removal at a steady state condition and at a transient condition is evaluated with the real design configuration in the KALIMER-600. The MARS-LMR code, which is developed for the system analysis of a liquid metal-cooled fast reactor, is applied to the analysis. In the present study, it is validated that the performance of natural circulation loop is enough to achieve the required passive heat removal for the PDRC. The most optimized modeling methodology is also searched for using various modeling approaches.


Author(s):  
Shubhankar Chakraborty ◽  
Prasanta Kr. Das

Natural circulation loop (NCL) transfers thermal energy without using any external power. As with phase change, one can expect a higher rate of heat transfer and a greater change in density, NCL with a phase change of the circulating fluid is a more effective energy transfer device. Though in many of the practical NCLs there are multiple heating risers, the characteristics of NCLs with parallel boiling risers have not been investigated in detail. In the present work, the steady-state behavior of a two-phase NCL with two parallel boiling risers for water as the working fluid has been investigated. Emphasis has been given to the performance of the loop when the risers are differentially heated. Effect of different parameters on the loop circulation rate and energy transport for both equally and differentially heated conditions has been thoroughly examined and compared to the performance of a single-riser loop under equivalent working condition.


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