Data Analysis of 64 Rod Bundles Reflood Heat Transfer Experiment

The test data of 64 rod bundles reflood heat transfer experiment performed by China Institute of Atomic Energy are analyzed. The heater rods are electrically powered and have a diameter of 9.5 mm and a length of 4.3 m arranged in a 8 × 8 array with a 12.6 mm pitch. The test parameter is in the range of 10–500 kg/(m2 · s) for injection water mass flux, 20–80°C for injection water temperature, 500–600°C for initial heater rod temperature, 0–1.1 kW/m for heating power, respectively. The system pressure is atmosphere pressure. Two kinds of spacer grids with and without mixing vanes are adopted to investigate their effect on heat transfer. The result shows that rod wall temperature downstream the spacer grid with mixing vanes is lower than that without mixing vanes, which indicates that the heat transfer is enhanced with mixing vanes. The rewetting velocity is nearly a constant under a certain test condition. The experimental values of rewetting velocity are compared with heat conduction controlled theories. At low mass flow rate, one-dimensional conduction gives agreement with experiment; while at high mass flow rate, the two-dimensional conduction theory is shown to be in agreement with experiment data. The RELAP5/ MOD3.3 reflood model is assessed against the test data. Comparison of code prediction and measured data indicates that the code predicts quench time relatively well but the peak rod temperature differs.

Development of Bubble Departure Diameter Model Based on Force Analysis

Bubble departure diameter has significant effect on bubble dynamics and heat transfer in boiling system, and it is difficult to be measured in a boiling system. Therefore, a method to predict bubble departure diameter is necessary to study of bubble dynamics and heat transfer in boiling system. A new theoretical model based on force analysis is proposed for the prediction of bubble departure diameter in vertical boiling system in this paper. Surface tension force, unsteady drag force, quasi-steady drag force, shear lift force, buoyancy force, hydrodynamic pressure force and contact pressure force are taken into account to build the model. Chen’s experimental data is used to validate the model, the averaged relative deviation between the predict results of the model and the experimental data is less than ±14.8%.

Buoyancy Effect on Heat Transfer in 5×5 Rod Bundles

Experiments of heat transfer at low flow rate are performed in a 5×5 square arrayed rod bundles. The diameter of the rod is 10mm with a pitch of 13.3mm, length of the test section is about 3 meters. Inlet Reynold number ranges from 2000 to 30000, Bo * ranges from 4×10−6 to 5×10−3. The rods are heated using a DC power, the heat flux ranges from 30 to 300 kW/m2. The experiment is aimed to investigate the buoyancy effect of mixed convection in rod bundles. The experimental data shows that similar with mixed convection in circular channels, buoyancy force has great effect on heat transfer at mixed convection regime in rod bundles. But the buoyancy effect appears at higher Bo* conditions. The spacer effect have also been investigated at both turbulent forced convection regime and mixed convection regime. The reconstruction of heat transfer downstream of spacers is different at different flow regimes, a reasonable explanation was provided.

Transient Simulation on Reactor Core Melt and Lower Support Plate Ablation in In-Vessel Retention

To precisely understand the accident process of reactor core melt in In-vessel retention (IVR) condition, 3-dimensional transient thermal conduction analysis with moving boundary is performed on quarter reactor core model. The decline of decay power and water level in reactor pressure vessel (RPV), and the radial distribution of assemblies of different material is considered. Convective heat transfer on rod surface and coolant interface is computed with empirical correlation of natural convection of saturated steam vapor / water. Radiation heat transfer with 16 neighboring rod is considered. Also, a dynamic ablation model is developed to simulate the ablation of lower support plate (LSP) caused by continuously accumulation of molten corium. The impingement heat transfer of the falling corium and the molten pool formed in LSP ablation cavity is taken into account. The simulation gives the ablation process on the surface of LSP as well as temperature history and molten proportion of the reactor core, which shows agreement with reference. Simulation shows: the melt process of reactor core accelerated in the accident process of 2600s, when coolant in RPV dry up. 65% of the core mass has molten at 8000 second. LSP is completely penetrated in 6000s, the ablation of LSP is mainly focused on an annular region of radius 700mm.

Heat Transfer Characteristics of Downward Facing Hot Horizontal Surfaces Using Mist Jet Impingement

Impinging jet cooling technique has been widely used extensively in various industrial processes, namely, cooling and drying of films and papers, processing of metals and glasses, cooling of gas turbine blades and most recently cooling of various components of electronic devices. Due to high heat removal rate the jet impingement cooling of the hot surfaces is being used in nuclear industries. During the loss of coolant accidents (LOCA) in nuclear power plant, an emergency core cooling system (ECCS) cool the cluster of clad tubes using consisting of fuel rods. Controlled cooling, as an important procedure of thermal-mechanical control processing technology, is helpful to improve the microstructure and mechanical properties of steel. In industries for heat transfer efficiency and homogeneous cooling performance which usually requires a jet impingement with improved heat transfer capacity and controllability. It provides better cooling in comparison to air. Rapid quenching by water jet, sometimes, may lead to formation of cracks and poor ductility to the quenched surface. Spray and mist jet impingement offers an alternative method to uncontrolled rapid cooling, particularly in steel and electronics industries. Mist jet impingement cooling of downward facing hot surface has not been extensively studied in the literature. The present experimental study analyzes the heat transfer characteristics a 0.15mm thick hot horizontal stainless steel (SS-304) foil using Internal mixing full cone (spray angle 20 deg) mist nozzle from the bottom side. Experiments have been performed for the varied range of water pressure (0.7–4.0 bar) and air pressure (0.4–5.8 bar). The effect of water and air inlet pressures, on the surface heat flux has been examined in this study. The maximum surface heat flux is achieved at stagnation point and is not affected by the change in nozzle to plate distance, Air and Water flow rates.

Leakage Flow Investigations on a Through-Wall Crack Related to Thermal Fatigue of Nuclear Power Plant Piping

For the validation of empirical models to calculate leakage flow rates in through-wall cracks of piping, reliable experimental data are essential. In this context, the Leakage Flow (LF) test rig was built up at the IKE for measurements of leakage flow rates with reduced pressure (maximum 1 MPA) and temperature (maximum 170 °C) compared to real plant conditions. The design of the test rig enables experimental investigations of through-wall cracks with different geometries and orientations by means of circular blank sheets with integrated cracks which are installed in the tubular test section of the test rig. In the paper, the experimental LF set-up and used measurement techniques are explained in detail. Furthermore, first leakage flow measurement results for one through-wall crack geometry and different imposed fluid pressures at ambient temperature conditions are presented and discussed. As an additional aspect the experimental data are used for the determination of the flow resistance of the investigated leak channel. Finally, the experimental results are compared with numerical results of WinLeck calculations to prove specifically in WinLeck implemented numerical models.

Investigation and Modeling of the In-Tube Heat Transfer of Fluids at Supercritical Pressure During Heating

Investigations and numerical modelling are performed on the heat transfer to CO2 at supercritical pressure under buoyancy affected conditions during heating in a vertical tube with inner diameter of 2 mm. Numerical modelling are carried out using several low Reynolds number (LRN) k-ε models, including the model due to Launder and Sharma (LS), Abe, Kondoh and Nagano (AKN), Myong and Kasagi (MK) models. The numerical results are compared with the corresponding experimental data and the predicted values using the semi-empirical correlation for convection heat transfer of supercritical fluids without deterioration. The abilities of various LRN models to predict the heat transfer to fluids at supercritical pressures under normal and buoyancy affected heat transfer conditions are evaluated. Detailed information related to the flow and turbulence is presented to get better understanding of the mechanism of the heat transfer deterioration due to buoyancy, as well as the different behavior of various LRN turbulence models in responding to the buoyancy effect, which gives clues in future model improvement and development to predict the buoyancy affected heat transfer more precisely and in a broader range of conditions as they come to be used to simulate the flow and heat transfer in various applications such as in the supercritical pressure water-cooled reactor (SCWR) and the supercritical pressure steam generator in the high temperature gas cooled reactor (HTR).

Numerical Investigation of Melt Jet Breakup With Different Shapes in Water Pool

During a severe accident in nuclear power plant, core damage may occur due to decay heat and molten fuel can pour into and interact with water resulting in steam explosion. The energetics of steam explosion strongly depends on the initial premixing stage during which the molten fuel undergoes a coarse fragmentation process, which determines the surface area for fuel-coolant contact and heat transfer. Extensive research has been done to understand the premixing stage, however, most of the studies are focused on the cylindrical jet interaction with water. In fact, during core melt, the molten fuel may pour near the edge of core, so the shapes and size of melt jet may differ significantly based on specific conditions. In this paper, numerically study on the melt jet breakup with different shapes in pool water are conducted, such as elliptical shape with VOF method. Firstly, the deformation of molten jet under the same conditions in 2D model is compared with 3D model and shows that the breakup of 3D model is quite different from 2D model, the integration of 3D model is maintained much better than 2D model. Then the characteristics of breakup of elliptic cylindrical melt jet are analyzed and compared with cylindrical melt jet. The results shows that the interface surface area of elliptic cylindrical jet is nearly twice the cylindrical jet.

Research on Impact of Pressurizer Heater Block on SGTR Overfill Analysis

Steam generator overfill due to steam generator tube rupture have been analyzed for CAP1400 plant, in which two cases were simulated, including pressurizer heater switching off available and unavailable under low pressurizer water level. The results indicate that it has a certain margin to steam generator (SG) overfill for the ruptured steam generator under steam generator tube rupture (SGTR) accident. Analysis results have also shown that the SG overfill margin will be slightly decreased in case of pressurizer heater swiching off unavailable, however, the impact is not significant.

Sensitivity Study of LOCA-Generated Debris on the Pressure Drop of Fuel Assembly

The coolant of emergency core cooling system (ECCS), for long-term core cooling (LTCC), comes from the containment sump under the loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). In the event of LOCA, within the containment of the pressurized water reactor (PWR), thermal insulation of piping and other materials in the vicinity of the break could be dislodged. A fraction of these dislodged insulation and other materials would be transported to the floor of the containment by coolant. Some of these debris might get through strainer and eventually accumulate over the suction sump screens of the emergency core cooling systems (ECCS). So, these debris like fibrous glass, fibrous wool, chemical precipitates and other particles cause pressure drop across the sump screen to increase, affecting the cooling water recirculation. As to address this safety issue, the downstream effect tests were performed over full-scale mock up fuel assembly. Sensitivity studies on pressure drop through LOCA-generated debris, deposited on fuel assembly, were performed to evaluate the effects of debris type and flowrate. Fibrous debris is the most crucial material in terms of causing pressure drop, with fibrous wool (FW) debris being more efficacious than fibrous glass (FG) debris.