• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.1
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• pp.95-103
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• 2019

Vapor explosions can be classified in terms of modes of contact between the hot molten fuel and the coolant, since different contact modes may affect fuel-coolant mixing and subsequent vapor explosion energetics. It is generally accepted that most vapor explosion phenomena fall into three different modes of contact; fuel pouring into coolant, coolant injection into fuel and stratified fuel-coolant layers. In this study, we review previous stratified steam explosion experiments as well as recent experiments performed at the KTH in Sweden. While experiments with prototypic reactor materials are minimal, we do note that generally the energetics is limited for the stratified mode of contact. When the fuel mass involved in a steam explosion in a stratified geometry is compared to a pool geometry based on geometrical aspects, one can conclude that there is a very limited set of conditions (when melt jet diameter is small) under which a steam explosion is more energetic in a stratified geometry. However, under these limited conditions the absolute energetic explosion output would still be small because the total fuel mass involved would be limited.

• 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.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.215-221
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• 1993

A required initial condition for a steam explosion to occur following core meltdown accidents of a nuclear power plant is the formation of a coarse mixture of molten fuel and water. The extent of a premixing is the measure of efficiency of steam explosion that may follow. A simple one-dimensional, transient model and the flooding criteria have been applied to evaluate the fuel/coolant mixing limit. Also, both instant breakup and dynamic breakup models for the mixing process have been separately used here and compared each other. The results indicate that fuel temperature, ambient pressure, mixing diameter, water depth, and pouring diameter are the important parameters affecting the mixing behavior.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.980-992
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• 2024

Steam line break accident (SLB) in the nuclear reactor is one of the representative Non-LOCA accidents in which thermal-hydraulics and neutron kinetics are strongly coupled each other. Thus, the multi-scale and multi-physics approach is applied in this study in order to examine a realistic safety margin. An entire reactor coolant system is modelled by system scale node, whereas sub-channel scale resolution is applied for the region of interest such as the reactor core. Fuel performance code is extended to consider full core pin-wise fuel behaviour. The MARU platform is developed for easy integration of the codes to be coupled. An initial stage of the steam line break accident is simulated on the MARU platform. As cold coolant is injected from the cold leg into the reactor pressure vessel, the power increases due to the moderator feedback. Three-dimensional coolant and fuel behaviour are qualitatively visualized for easy comprehension. Moreover, quantitative investigation is added by focusing on the enhancement of safety margin by means of comparing the minimum departure from nucleate boiling ratio (MDNBR). Three factors contributing to the increase of the MDNBR are proposed: Various geometric parameters, realistic power distribution by neutron kinetics code, Radial coolant mixing including sub-channel physics model.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.99-109
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• 1997

A dynamic model for hydrogen generation by Fuel-Coolant Interactions(FCI) is developed with separate models for each FCI stage, coarse mixing and stratification. The model includes the physical concept of FCI, semi-empirical heat and mass transfer correlation and the concentration diffusion equation with the general non-zero boundary condition. The calculated amount of hydrogen, which is mainly generated in stratification, is compared with the FITS experiments. The model developed in this study shows a good agreement within a range of 10 % fuel oxidation rate and predicts the controlled mechanism of the chemical reaction very well. And this model predicts more accurately than the previous works. It is shown from the sensitivity study that the higher initial temperature of fuel particle is, the larger the reaction rate is. Up to 2700 K of temperature of the particle, the reaction rate increases rapid, which can lead to metal ignition.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.19-25
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• 1970

A study was conducted on the coolant mixing between water flowing in two adjacent subchannels. Measurements were made of the quantity of mass transferred between a larger rectangular channel and a smaller triangular channel in a 19-rod fuel bundle under the conditions of single phase flow and air-water two-phase flow. The results of the experiments showed that the low mixing rate appears in single phase flow, and high mixing rate was measured in air-water two-phase flow Mixing rate decreases with the increasing of air void fraction during the air-water flow. It seems that the high mixing rate in the air-water flow was caused due to adequate agitation of the chaotic air void.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.10
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• pp.3775-3786
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• 2023

Mixing Vane Grid (MVG) is one of the most important structures in fuel assembly due to its high performance in mixing the coolant and ultimately increasing Critical Heat Flux (CHF), which avoids the temperature rising suddenly of fuel rods. To evaluate the mixing performance of the MVG, a Total Diffusion Coefficient (TDC) mixing coefficient is defined in the subchannel analysis code. Conventionally, the TDC of the spacer grid is obtained from the combination of experiments and subchannel analysis. However, the processing of obtaining and determine a reasonable TDC is much challenging, it is affected by boundary conditions and MVG geometries. In is difficult to perform all the large and costing rod bundle tests. In this paper, the CFD method was applied in TDC analysis. A typical 5 × 5 MVG was simulated and validated to estimate the mixing performance of the MVG. The subchannel code was used to calculate the TDC. Firstly, the CFD method was validated from the aspect of pressure drop and lateral temperature distribution in the subchannels. Then the effect of boundary conditions including the inlet temperature, inlet velocities, heat flux ratio between hot and cold rods and the arrangement of hot and cold rods on MVG mixing and TDC were studied. The geometric effects on mixing are also carried out in this paper. The effect of vane pattern on mixing was investigated to determine which one is the best to represent the grid's mixing performance.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.594-597
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• 2009

The mixing characteristics of pylon injection in a Scramjet combustor and effects of film cooling to protect pylon from air-heating. Three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations with $k-{\omega}$ SST turbulence model were used. Fuel hydrogen and air were considered as coolants. There were remarkable improvements of penetration and mixing rate with the pylon injection. There also over-heating on the front surface of pylon without film cooling. The coolant injected parallel to the front surface of the pylon protect the pylon from over-heating.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.5-10
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• 2009

This work deals with a controlled auto-ignition (CAI) single cylinder gasoline engine, focusing on the extension of operating conditions. The fuel is injected indirectly into electrically heated inlet air flow. In order to keep a homogeneous air-fuel mixing, the fuel injector is cooled by the water of a specially designed coolant passage. The engine emission characteristics were investigated under the wide range of operating conditions such as 32 to 63 in the air-fuel ratio, 1000 to 1800 rpm in the engine speed, and 150 to $180^{\circ}C$ in the inlet air temperature. The ultra lean-burn can be achieved by the auto-ignition of gasoline fuel due to the heated inlet air in the compression ignition gasoline engine. It is confirmed that the emission concentrations of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxide can be significantly reduced by CAI combustion compared with the combustion of a conventional spark ignition engine.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.269-274
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• 2011

A CFD analysis was performed to examine the inner channel blockage of dual-cooled fuel which has being developed for the power uprate of a pressurized water reactor (PWR). The dual-cooled fuel consists of an annular fuel pellet($UO_2$) and dual claddings as well as internal and external cooling channels. The dual-cooled annular fuel is different from a conventional solid 려el by employing an internal cooling channel for each fuel pellet as well as an external cooling channel. One of the key issues is the hypothetical event of inner channel blockage because the inner channel is an isolated flow channel without the coolant mixing between the neighboring flow channels. The inner channel blockage could cause the Departure from Nucleate Boiling (DNB) in the inner channel that eventually causes a fuel failure. This paper presents the CFD simulation of the flow through the side holes of the bottom end plug for the complete entrance blockage of the inner channel. Since the amount of coolant supply to the inner channel depends on largely the pressure loss at the side hole, the pressure loss coefficient of the side hole was estimated by the CFD analysis. The CFD prediction of the loss coefficient showed a reasonable agreement with an experimental data for the complete blockage of both the inner channel entrance and the outer channel. The CFD predictions also showed the decrease of the loss coefficient as the outer channel blockage increases.