Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Thermal-hydraulic 0D/3D coupling in OpenFOAM: Validation and application in nuclear installations

  • Santiago F. Corzo (CIMEC Centro de Investigacion de M etodos Computacionales (UNL, CONICET)) ;
  • Dario M. Godino (CIMEC Centro de Investigacion de M etodos Computacionales (UNL, CONICET)) ;
  • Alirio J. Sarache Pina (CIMEC Centro de Investigacion de M etodos Computacionales (UNL, CONICET)) ;
  • Norberto M. Nigro (CIMEC Centro de Investigacion de M etodos Computacionales (UNL, CONICET)) ;
  • Damian E. Ramajo (CIMEC Centro de Investigacion de M etodos Computacionales (UNL, CONICET))
  • Received : 2022.05.19
  • Accepted : 2023.01.01
  • Published : 2023.05.25
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Abstract

The nuclear safety assessment involving large transient simulations is forcing the community to develop methods for coupling thermal-hydraulics and neutronic codes and three-dimensional (3D) Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes. In this paper a set of dynamic boundary conditions are implemented in OpenFOAMⓇ in order to apply zero-dimensional (0D) approaches coupling with 3D thermal-hydraulic simulation in a single framework. This boundary conditions are applied to model pipelines, tanks, pumps, and heat exchangers. On a first stage, four tests are perform in order to assess the implementations. The results are compared with experimental data, full 3D CFD, and system code simulations, finding a general good agreement. The semi-implicit implementation nature of these boundary conditions has shown robustness and accuracy for large time steps. Finally, an application case, consisting of a simplified open pool with a cooling external circuit is solved to remark the capability of the tool to simulate thermal hydraulic systems commonly found in nuclear installations.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Agencia Nacional de Promocion Cientifica y Tecnologica (PICT 2019-03750) as well as Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnologicas.

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