• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.66-73
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• 2015

Background: A numerical simulation was carried out to investigate the difference between internal and external heat-flux distributions at the reactor vessel wall under in-vessel retention through external reactor vessel cooling (IVR-ERVC). Methods: Total loss of feed water, station blackout, and large break loss of coolant accidents were selected as the severe accident scenarios, and a transient analysis using the element-birth-and-death technique was conducted to reflect the vessel erosion (vessel wall thickness change) effect. Results: It was found that the maximum heat flux at the focusing region was decreased at least 10% when considering the two-dimensional heat conduction at the reactor vessel wall. Conclusion: The results show that a higher thermal margin for the IVR-ERVC strategy can be achieved in the focusing region. In addition, sensitivity studies revealed that the heat flux and reactor vessel thickness are dominantly affected by the molten corium pool formation according to the accident scenario.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.19-27
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• 1996

Self-pressurization of cylindrical container of cryogen is numerically analyzed. The container is axi-symmetric and heated from side wall with constant heat flux. Natural convection by external heat flux is studied numerically using finite difference method. Oxygen, nytrogen and hydrogen are working fluids in this paper. Liquid is considered incompressible fluid and vapor is assumed to behave as gas meeting with virial equation of gas. The Second virial coefficients of gas are obtained from Lennard-jones model. The important variables which have effects on self-pressurization are external heat flux, heat capacity of wall and initial ullage in container. The most important variable of them is external heat flux. The pressure rise calculated from the virial gas model is slightly different from that calculated using Ideal gas model for oxygen.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.7
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• pp.779-784
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• 2005

This paper presents the theory of similarity transformations applied to the momentum and energy equations for laminar, forced, external boundary layer flow over a horizontal flat plate which leads to a set of non-linear, ordinary differential equations of phase change material slurry(PCM Slurry). The momentum and energy equation set numerically to obtain the non-dimensional velocity and temperature profiles in a laminar boundary layer are solved. The heat transfer characteristics of PCM slurry was numerically investigated with similar method. It is clarified that the similar solution method of Newtonian fluid can be used reasonably this type of PCM slurry which has low concentration. The data of local wall heat flux and convective heat transfer coefficient of PCM slurry are higher than those of water more than 150$\~$200$\%$, approximately.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.112-116
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• 2011

In this paper, a preconverter of MCFC for an emergence electric power supplier is numerically simulated to increase the hydrogen production from natural gas (methane). Commercial code is used to simulated the porous catalyst with user subroutine to model three dominant chemical reactions which are Stream Reforming(SR), Water-Gas Shift(WGS), and Direct Stram Reforming(DSR). To get 10% fuel conversion rate in preconverter. the required external heat flux is supplied from outer wall of preconverter. The calculated results show that very nonuniform temperature distribution and chemical reaction happen near the wall of preconverter. These phenomena can be explained by the low heat conductivity of porous catalyst and the endothermic reforming reaction.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.8
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• pp.3017-3029
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• 2023

In the late in-vessel phase of a nuclear reactor severe accident, the internal heat transfer and crust evolution during the debris bed melting process have important effects on the thermal load distribution along the vessel wall, and further affect the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) failure mode and the state of melt during leakage. This study coupled the phase change model and large eddy simulation to investigate the variations of the temperature, melt liquid fraction, crust and heat flux distributions during the debris bed melting process in the hypothetical severe accident of HPR1000. The results indicated that the heat flow towards the vessel wall and upper surface were similar at the beginning stage of debris melting, but the upward heat flow increased significantly as the development of the molten pool. The maximum heat flux towards the vessel wall reached 0.4 MW/m². The thickness of lower crust decreased as the debris melting. It was much thicker at the bottom region with the azimuthal angle below 20° and decreased rapidly at the azimuthal angle around 20-50°. The maximum and minimum thicknesses were 2 and 90 mm, respectively. By contrast, the distribution of upper crust was uniform and reached stable state much earlier than the lower crust, with the thickness of about 10 mm. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis of initial condition indicated that as the decrease of time interval from reactor scram to debris bed dried-out, the maximum debris temperature and melt fraction became larger, the lower crust thickness became thinner, but the upper crust had no significant change. The sensitivity analysis of in-vessel retention (IVR) strategies indicated that the passive and active external reactor vessel cooling (ERVC) had little effect on the internal heat transfer and crust evolution. In the case not considering the internal reactor vessel cooling (IRVC), the upper crust was not obvious.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.03b
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• pp.308-311
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• 2008

As a severe accident mitigation strategy in a nuclear power plant, ERVC(External Reactor Vessel Cooling) has been proposed. Under ERVC conditions, where a molten corium is relocated in a reactor vessel lower head, a natural circulation two-phase flow is driven in the annular gap between the reactor vessel wall and its insulation. This flow should be sufficient to remove the decay heat of the molten corium and maintain the integrity of the reactor vessel. Preliminary experimental study was performed to estimate the natural circulation two-phase flow. The experimental facility which is one dimensional, the half height, and the 1/238 channel area of APR1400, was prepared and the experiments were carried out to estimate the natural circulation two-phase flow with varying the parameters of the coolant inlet area, the heat rate, and the coolant inlet subcooling. In results, the periodic circulation flow was observed and the characteristics were varied from the experimental parameters. The frequency of the natural circulation flow rate increased as the wall heat flux increased.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.147-152
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• 2017

The external reactor vessel cooling (ERVC) is well known strategy to mitigate a severe accident at which nuclear fuel inside the reactor vessel is molten. In order to compare the heat removal capacity of ERVC between the nuclear reactor designs quantitatively, numerical method is often used. However, the study for ERVC using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is still quite scarce. As a validation study on the numerical prediction for ERVC using CFD, the subcooled boiling flow and natural circulation of coolant at the ULPU-V experiment was simulated. The commercially available CFD software ANSYS-CFX was used. Shear stress transport (SST) model and RPI model were used for turbulence closure and wall-boiling, respectively. The averaged flow velocities in the downcomer and the baffle entry under the reactor vessel lower plenum are in good agreement with the available experimental data and recent computational results. Steam generated from the heated wall condenses rapidly and coolant flows maintains single-phase flow until coolant boils again by flashing process due to the decrease of saturation temperature induced by higher elevation. Hence, the flow rate of coolant natural circulation does not vary significantly with the change of heat flux applied at the reactor vessel, which is also consistent with the previous literatures.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.10
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• pp.1957-1963
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• 2005

In this study, external condensation heat transfer coefficients (HTCs) of six flammable refrigerants of propylene (RI270), propane (R290), isobutane (R600a), butane (R600), dimethylether (RE170), and HFC32 were measured at the vapor temperature of $39^{\circ}C$ on a 1023 fpm low fin and Turbo-C tubes. All data were taken under the heat flux of $32\~116\;and\;42\~142kW/m^2$ for the low fin and Turbo-C tubes respectively. Flammable refrigerants' data obtained on enhanced tubes showed a typical trend that external condensation HTCs decrease with increasing wall subcooling. HFC32 and DME showed up to $30\%$ higher HTCs than those of HCFC22 due to their excellent thermophysical properties. Propylene, propane, isobutane, and butane showed similar or lower HTCs than those of HCFC22. Beatty and Katz' correlation predicted the HTCs of the flammable refrigerants obtained on a low fin tube within a mean deviation of $7.3\%$. Turbo-C tube showed the best performance due to its 3 dimensional surface geometry for fast removal of condensate.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.299-308
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• 2022

This study was conducted to predict the tendency for heat exchange and boil-off gas (BOG) in a liquefied hydrogen tank under sloshing excitation. First, athe fluid domain excited by sloshing was modeled using a multiphase-thermal flow domain in which liquid hydrogen and hydrogen gas are in the saturated state. Both the the volume of fluid (VOF) and Eulerian-based multi-phase flow methods were applied to validate the accuracy of the pressure prediction. Second, it was indirectly shown that the fluid velocity prediction could be accurate by comparing the free surface and impact pressure from the computational fluid dynamics with those from the experimental results. Thereafter, the heat ingress from the external convective heat flux was reflected on the outer surfaces of the hydrogen tank. Eulerian-based multiphase-heat flow analysis was performed for a two-dimensional Type-C cylindrical hydrogen tank under rotational sloshing motion, and an inflation technique was applied to transform the fluid domain into a computational grid model. The heat exchange and heat flux in the hydrogen liquid-gas mixture were calculated throughout the analysis,, whereas the mass transfer and vaporization models were excluded to account for the pure heat exchange between the liquid and gas in the saturated state. In addition, forced convective heat transfer by sloshing on the inner wall of the tank was not reflected so that the heat exchange in the multiphase flow of liquid and gas could only be considered. Finally, the effect of sloshing on the amount of heat exchange between liquid and gas hydrogen was discussed. Considering the heat ingress into liquid hydrogen according to the presence/absence of a sloshing excitation, the amount of heat flux and BOG were discussed for each filling ratio.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.531-536
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• 2004

In-arm type hydropeumatic suspension unit(ISU) is an equipment of armed tracked vehicle to absorb impact load and vibration from the irregular ground. During the operation of ISU, main piston moves forward and backward and oil flowing through damper transmits the external impact load to floating piston. Heat is generated in ISU by the oil pressure drop through the damper orifice and the friction between cylinder wall and two pistons. On the other hand, internal heat dissipatis outside via heat convection. Occurrence of high temperature can deteriorate durability of major components and basic function of ISU. And, it can cause fatal problem in the ISU life time and the sealing performance of piston rings. As well, the spring constant change of nitrogen gas that is caused by the temperature rise exerts the negative effect to the vehicle stability. Therefore, in this paper, we analyze the heat transfer analysis of the entire ISU unit, by finite element method, with the outside flow velocities 8m/s and 10m/s.