Flow and Heat Transfer Analysis of Reactor Coolant Pump in Transient Conditions

원자로 냉각재 펌프의 과도 상태의 유동 및 열전달 해석 연구

The structural analysis of a reactor coolant pump(RCP) of a nuclear power plant is very important for the safety assessment of the plant. Accurate boundary conditions for the heat transfer coefficient are required for reliable thermal stress analysis of the pump casing, especially in transient operations of the pump since the coolant properties are largely dependent on operational conditions. In the present study, a 3D mixed flow type coolant pump was modeled from the RCP drawings and analyzed in the steady state and number of transient flow conditions by using a commercial code STAR-CD. From the result of the computation, it is seem that the average heat transfer coefficients for the cases considered are found to be the suggested values of the manufacturer, Westinghouse Energy System. The unevenness in local heat transfer coefficients, however, is found to be considerable so that the use of average heat transfer coefficients in all boundaries might not give reliable thermal stresses.