Optimization of a Wire-Spacer Fuel Assembly of Liquid Metal reactor

This study deals with the shape optimization of a wire spacer fuel assembly of Liquid Metal Reactors (LMRs). The Response Surface based optimization Method is used as an optimization technique with the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes analysis of fluid flow and heat transfer using Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model as a turbulence closure. Two design variables namely, pitch to fuel rod diameter ratio and lead length to fuel rod diameter ratio are selected. The objective function is defined as a combination of the heat transfer rate and the inverse of friction loss with a weighting factor. Three level full-factorial method is used to determine the training points. In total, nine experiments have been performed numerically and the resulting datas have been analysed for optimization study. Also, a comparison has been made between the optimized surface and the reference one in this study.