• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.05b
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• pp.331-336
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• 1996

The effects of a mixing vane on air-water mixed flow have been experimentally studied in this work, to investigate the basic mechanisms that the mixing vane affects critical heat flux (CHF). Experiment was performed for various flow rates focusing on bubbly flow and annular flow patterns. Acrylic tube (1.7m long, 11 mm I.D.) and the split vane type mixing vane were used, and ring-type conductance probes were used to measure the liquid film thickness in annular flow. Experimental results show that, (a) bubbly-to slug flow transition and churn-to-annular flow transition occur respectively near the mixing vane compared to the tests without mixing vane, (b) in bubbly flow region, the mixing vane breaks the bubbles into smaller ones and forwards bubbles to the center region of the tube by the centrifugal force, (c) the liquid film thickness in annular flow is decreased near the mixing vane for mass fluxes.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06e
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• pp.482-487
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• 2001

A CFD study was conducted to evaluate the nuclear fuel assembly coolant mixing that is promoted by the flow-mixing vanes on the grid spacer. Four mixing vanes (split vane, swirl vane, twisted vane, hybrid vane) were chosen in this study. A single subchannel of one grid span is modeled using the flow symmetry. The three mixing vanes other than swirl vane generate a large crossflow between the subchannels and a skewed elliptic swirling flow in the subchannel near the grid spacer. The swirl vane induces a circular swirling flow in the subchannel and a negligible crossflow. The split vane and the twisted vane were predicted to result in relatively larger pressure drop across the grid spacer. Since the average turbulent kinetic energy in the subchannel rapidly decreases to a fully developed level downstream of the spacer, turbulent mixing caused by the mixing vanes appears to be not as effective as swirling flow mixing in the subchannel. In summary, the CFD analysis represented the overall characteristics of coolant mixing well in a nuclear fuel assembly with the flow mixing vanes on the grid spacer. The CFD study is therefore quite useful for the development of an advanced flow-mixing vane.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.1819-1824
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• 2004

The common method to improve heat transfer in Nuclear fuel rod bundle is install a mixing vane in space grid. The previous split mixing vane is guides cooling water to swirl flow in sub-channel of fuel assembly. But, this swirl flow decade rapidly after mixing vane and the effect of enhancing the heat transfer vanish behind this short region. The large scale secondary vortex flow was generated by rearranging the inclined angle direction of mixing vanes to the coordinated directions. This LSVF mixing vanes generate the most strong secondary flow vortices which maintain about 35 $D_H$ after the spacer grid and the streamwise vorticity in subchannel with LSVF mixing vane sustain two times more than that in subchannel with split mixing vane. The turbulent kinetic energy and the Reynolds stresses generated by the mixing vanes have nearly same scales but maintain twice more than previous type.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.1 s.244
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• pp.24-31
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• 2006

Mixing vanes have been installed in the space grid of nuclear fuel rod bundle to improve turbulent heat transfer. Split mixing vanes induce the vortex flow in the cooling water to swirl in sub-channel of fuel assembly. But, The swirling flow decays rapidly so that the heat transfer enhancing effect limited to short length after the mixing vane. In thi present study, the large scale vortex flow(LSVF) is generated by rearranging the mixing vanes to the coordinated directions. This LSVF mixing vanes generate the most strong secondary flow vortices which maintain about 35 $D_H$ after the spacer grid. The streamwise vorticity generated by LSVF sustain two times more than that split mixing vane. Heat transfer in the rod bundle occurs greatly at the same direction to cross flow, and maximum temperature at the surface of bundle drops about 1.5K

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.1174-1180
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• 2001

Various experimental data, including mixing areas, cross correlation factors, surface flow patterns on nozzle walls, and far field noise spectra, was used to draw a noise control mechanism in a supersonic jet. In the underexpanded case, mixing of the jet air with ambient air was significantly enhanced as presented before, and mixing noise was also dramatically reduced. Screech tones, in the overexpanded case, were effectively suppressed by trailing edge modifications, although mixing enhancement was not noticeable. From mixing and noise performance of nozzles with modified trailing edges, enhancing mixing through streamwise vortices seems an effective way to reduce mixing noise in the underexpanded flow regime. However, screech tones in the overespanded flow regime is well controlled or suppressed by making shock cells and/or spanwise large scale structures irregular and/or less organized by a proper selection of trailing edges. The noise field in the overexpanded flow regime was greatly affected by the symmetricity of the nozzle exit geometry. In the underexpanded flow regime, the effects of the symmetricity of the nozzle exit on mixing were negligible.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.811-818
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• 2006

Mixing vanes have been installed in the space grid of nuclear fuel rod bundle to improve turbulent heat transfer. Split mixing vanes induce the vortex flow in the cooling water to swirl in sub-channel of fuel assembly. But, The swirling flow decays rapidly so that the heat transfer enhancing effect limited to short length after the mixing vane. In the present study, the large scale vortex flow (LSVF) is generated by rearranging the mixing vanes to the coordinated directions. This LSVF mixing vanes generate the most strong secondary flow vortices which maintain about $35D_h$ after the spacer grid. The streamwise vorticity generated by LSVF sustain two times more than that split mixing vane.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.84-91
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• 2015

SMART adopts, very unique facility, an FMHA to enhance the thermal and flow mixing capability in abnormal conditions of some steam generators or reactor coolant pumps. The FMHA is important for enhancing thermal mixing of the core inlet flow during a transient and even during accidents, and thus it is essential that the thermal mixing characteristics of flow of the FMHA be understood. Investigations for the mixing characteristics of the FMHA had been performed by using experimental and CFD methods in KAERI. In this study, the temperature distribution at the core inlet region is investigated for several abnormal conditions of steam generators using the commercial code, FLUENT 12. Simulations are carried out with two kinds of FMHA shapes, different mesh resolutions, turbulence models, and steam generator conditions. The CFD results show that the temperature deviation at the core inlet reduces greatly for all turbulence models and steam generator conditions tested here, and the effect of mesh refinement on the temperature distribution at the core inlet is negligible. Even though the uniformity of FMHA outlet hole flow increases the thermal mixing, the temperature deviation at the core inlet is within an acceptable range. We numerically confirmed that the FMHA applied in SMART has an excellent mixing capability and all simulation cases tested here satisfies the design requirement for FMHA thermal mixing capability.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.3021-3031
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• 1994

Experiments have been performed to find out the effect of the mixing port length of Y-jet atomizers on the spray performance, using air and water as the test fluids. Water and air flow rates and drop sizes were measured at each injection pressure condition for different mixing port length. The air flow rate was almost unaffected by the change of the mixing port length. However, the water flow rate was relatively susceptible to the change of the mixing port length. The mixing point pressure was very much influenced by the mixing port length. Variations of spatial distribution of Sauter Mean Diameter (SMD, $D_{32}$) and the cross-section-averaged SMD ($D_{32,m}$) with different mixing port length and air/water mass flow rate ratio were examined. Generally, when the mixing port length was reduced, the mean drop size decreased and became spatially even.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2004

It is of great interest to enhance mixing performance in a microchannel in which the flow is usually characterized as a low Reynolds number (Re) so that good mixing is quite difficult to be achieved in this laminar flow regime. In this regard, we present a new chaotic passive micromixer, named Barrier Embedded Micromixer (BEM), of which the mixing mechanism is based on chaotic flows. In BEM, chaotic flow is induced by periodic perturbation of the velocity field due to periodically inserted barriers along the channel wall while a helical type of flow is obtained by slanted grooves on the bottom surface of the channel in the pressure driven flow. To experimentally compare the mixing performance, a T-microchannel and a microchannel with only slanted grooves were also fabricated. All microchannels were made of PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) from SU-8 masters that were fabricated by conventional photolithography. Mixing performance was experimentally characterized with respect to an average mixing intensity by means of color change of phenolphthalein as pH indicator. It was found that mixing efficiency decreases as Re increases for all three micromixers. Experimental results obviously indicate that BEM has better mixing performance than the other two. Chaotic mixing mechanism, suggested in this study, can be easily applied to integrated microfluidic systems , such as Micro-Total-Analysis-System, Lab-on-a-chip and so on.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2811-2816
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• 2007

We conducted a numerical study of AC-electroosmotic (alternating current) effect on the fluid flow and mixing in a 3-D microchannel. The microchannel used as an efficient micro-mixer is composed of a channel and a series of pairs of electrodes attached in zigzag pattern on the bottom wall. The AC electric field is applied to the electrodes so that a steady flow current takes place around the electrodes. This current is flowing across the channel and thus contributing to the mixing of the fluid within the channel. We performed numerical simulations by using a commercial code to obtain a steady flow field. This steady flow is then used in evaluation of the mixing performance via the concept of mixing index. It was found that good combination of two kinds of electrode, which gave us a good mixing, is not simple harmonic. And when the length ratio of these two kinds of electrode is 2:1, we can get the best mixing effect.