초록
An accurate prediction of the bypass flow is of great importance in the VHTR core design concerning the fuel thermal margin. Nevertheless, there has not been much effort in evaluating the amount and the distribution of the core bypass flow. In order to evaluate the behavior and the distribution of the coolant flow, a unit-cell experiment was carried out. Unit-cell is the regular triangular section which is formed by connecting the centers of three hexagonal blocks. Various conditions such as the inlet mass flow rate, block combinations and the size of bypass gap were examined in the experiment. CFD analysis was carried out to analyze detailed characteristics of the flow distribution. Commercial CFD code FLUENT 6.3 was validated by comparing with the experimental results. In addition, SST model and standard k-$\varepsilon$ model were validated. The results of CFD simulation show good agreements with the experimental results. SST model shows better agreement than standard k-$\varepsilon$ model. Results showed that block combinations and the size of the bypass gap have an influence on the bypass flow ratio but the inlet mass flow rate does not.