• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.6
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• pp.1962-1971
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• 2022

The liquid lead-lithium (Pb-17Li) blanket has many applications in fusion reactors due to its good tritium breeding performance, high heat transfer efficiency and safety. The compatibility of liquid Pb-17Li alloy with the structural material of blanket under magnetic field is one of the concerns. In this study, corrosion experiments China low activation martensitic (CLAM) steel and 316L steel were carried out in a forced convection Pb-17Li loop under 1.0 T magnetic field at 480 ℃ for 1000 h. The corrosion results on 316L steel showed the characteristic with a superficial porous layer resulted from selective leaching of high-soluble alloy elements and subsequent phase transformation from austenitic matrix to ferritic phase. Then the porous layers were eroded by high-velocity jet fluid. The main corrosion mechanism of CLAM steel was selective dissolution-base corrosion attack on the microstructure boundary regions and exclusively on high residual stress areas. CLAM steel performed a better corrosion resistance than that of 316L steel. The high Ni dissolution rate and the erosion of corroded layers are the main causes for the severe corrosion of 316L steel.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.11
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• pp.4159-4169
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• 2022

Hydrogen mitigation using Passive Autocatalytic Recombiners (PARs) has been widely accepted methodology inside reactor containment of accident struck Nuclear Power Plants. They reduce hydrogen concentration inside reactor containment by recombining it with oxygen from containment air on catalyst surfaces at ambient temperatures. Exothermic heat of reaction drives the product steam upwards, establishing natural convection around PAR, thus invoking homogenisation inside containment. CFD models resolving individual catalyst plate channels of PAR provide good insight about temperature and hydrogen recombination. But very thin catalyst plates compared to large dimensions of the enclosures involved result in intensive calculations. Hence, empirical correlations specific to PARs being modelled are often used in integral containment studies. In this work, an experimentally validated CFD model of PAR has been employed for developing an empirical correlation for Indian PAR. For this purpose, detailed parametric study involving different gas mixture variables at PAR inlet has been performed. For each case, respective values of gas mixture variables at recombiner outlet have been tabulated. The obtained data matrix has then been processed using regression analysis to obtain a set of correlations between inlet and outlet variables. The empirical correlation thus developed, can be easily plugged into commercially available CFD software.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.4759-4775
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• 2022

The RVACS is a versatile and robust safety system driven by two natural circulations: in-vessel coolant and ex-vessel air. To observe interaction between the two natural circulations, SINCRO-IT facility was designed with two different similarity laws simultaneously. Bo' based similarity law was employed for the in-vessel, while Ishii's similarity law for the ex-vessel excluding the radiation. Compared to the prototype, the sodium and air system, SINCRO-IT was designed with Wood's metal and air, having 1:4 of the length reduction, and 1.68:1 of the time scale ratio. For the steady state, RV temperature limit was violated at 0.8% of the decay heat, while the sodium boiling was predicted at 1.3%. It showed good accordance with the system code, TRACE. For an arbitrary re-criticality scenario with RVACS solitary operation, sodium boiling was predicted at 25,100 s after power increase from 1.0 to 2.0%, while the system code showed 30,300. Maximum temperature discrepancy between the experiments and system code was 4.2%. The design and methodology were validated by the system code TRACE in terms of the convection, and simultaneously, the system code was validated against the simulating experiments SINCRO-IT. The validated RVACS model could be imported to further accident analysis.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.88 no.6
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• pp.521-533
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• 2023

In the present study, the finite volume method is applied for the thermal performance prediction of the natural ventilation system using vertical solar chimney whereas, design parameters are optimized through the response surface methodology (RSM). The computational simulations are performed for various parameters of the solar chimney such as absorber temperature (40≤T_abs≤70℃), inlet temperature (20≤T₀≤30℃), inlet height of (0.1≤h≤0.2 m) and chimney width (0.1≤d≤0.2 m). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out to identify the design parameters that influence the average Nusselt number (Nu) and mass flow rate (ṁ). Then, quadratic polynomial regression models were developed to predict of all the response parameters. Consequently, numerical and graphical optimizations were performed to achieve multi-objective optimization for the desired criteria. According to the desirability function approach, it can be seen that the optimum objective functions are Nu=25.67 and ṁ=24.68 kg/h·m, corresponding to design parameters h=0.18 m, d=0.2 m, T_abs=46.81℃ and T₀=20℃. The optimal ventilation flow rate is enhanced by about 96.65% compared to the minimum ventilation rate, while solar energy consumption is reduced by 49.54% compared to the maximum ventilation rate.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.501-510
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• 2024

This study aimed to compare the cooling effect of specific body parts to increase workers' thermal comfort. The parts to be cooled comprised the head and neck; the coolant was a phase change material. The participants were ten men in their 20s of average size according to the 8th Size Korea. The experiment was conducted under the following conditions: 28.0 ± 0.5℃, 60.0 ± 5.0% RH, and 0.2 ± 0.1m/s. The exercise consisted of participants moving for 15 min at a constant speed of 80 BPM; later, a subjective sensation was performed, and the clothing surface temperature was measured. In doing so, heat, wetness, and discomfort after exercise were confirmed to have increased without a coolant. Significant differences over time appeared only when no coolant was used, showing that thermal comfort decreased. Despite the addition of coolant, the clothing surface temperature gradually increased over time, but it decreased with coolant rather than without it. Therefore, additional coolant areas, a lower temperature, and simultaneous cooling convection were required to improve thermal comfort.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.655-665
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• 2024

The objective of the present experimental study is to investigate the effect of inlet throttling on the thermohydraulic stability of a large scale water-based Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS). The test was performed using the water-based Natural convection Shutdown heat removal Test Facility (NSTF) at Argonne, which represented a ½ axial scale and 12.5° sector slice of the full scale Framatome 625 MW_t SC-HTGR RCCS concept. A two-phase steady state was first established through direct condensate refill, followed by increased inlet throttling over 10 stages, corresponding to a loss coefficient K over the range of 0.05-653. With the inlet throttling gradually increased, the system experienced a unique transition process between stabilization and destabilization. Through a stability analysis, three instability mechanisms were identified in the present test, including a compound mechanism due to both natural circulation oscillations (NCOs) and density wave oscillations (DWOs), Type-II DWOs, and geysering.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.6
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• pp.2375-2387
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• 2024

The passive safety systems (PSSs) within water-cooled reactors are meticulously engineered to function autonomously, requiring no external power source or manual intervention. They depend exclusively on inherent natural forces and the fundamental principles of reactor physics, such as gravity, natural convection, and phase changes, to manage, alleviate, and avert the release of radioactive materials into the environment during accident scenarios like a loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA). PSSs are already integrated into such operating commercial reactors as the Advanced Pressurized Reactor-1000 MWe (AP1000) and the Water-Water Energetic Reactor-1200 MWe (WWER-1200) are adopted in most of the upcoming small modular reactor (SMR) designs. Examples of water-cooled SMR PSSs are the passive emergency core-cooling system (ECCS), passive containment cooling system (PCCS), and passive decay-heat removal system, the designs of which vary based on reactor system-design requirements. However, understanding the accident-event progression and phases of a LOCA is pivotal for adopting a specific PSS for a new SMR design. This study covers the accident-event progression for direct vessel injection (DVI) small-break loss-of-coolant accident (SB-LOCA), associated physics phenomena, knowledge gaps, and important figures of merit (FOMs) that may need to be evaluated and assessed to validate thermal-hydraulics models with an available experimental dataset to support new SMR design and development.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.11-19
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• 2024

We performed numerical simulations on a C-type liquid hydrogen (LH2) storage tank for commercial vehicles to reduce evaporation rates by manipulating vortical structures. Owing to external heat, natural convection occurs inside the tank, leading to the enhanced evaporation of LH2. We observed that the regions of high magnitude vorticity correlate with those of high evaporation rates. Specifically, vortical structures in the side section area show higher vorticity magnitude and evaporation rates compared to those in the midsection area. To suppress these vortical motions, we installed an array of ribs at intervals corresponding to the mean diameter of the vortical structures. As a result, the area occupied by vortical structures in the side section area decreased, leading to a reduction in evaporation speed by approximately 2.3 times. This study elucidates the internal evaporation mechanism in storage tanks from the perspective of flow structures and potentially contributes to minimizing the boil-off rate in cryogenic storage tanks.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.619-628
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• 2010

Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) has recently received attention in developing implantable surgical equipments and it is expected to lead the future medical device market by adequately imitating surgeons' flexible and delicate hand movement. However, SMA actuators have not been used widely because of their nonlinear behavior called hysteresis, which makes their control difficult. Hence, we propose a parameter, $t_1$, which is necessary for temperature control, by analyzing the open-loop step response between current and temperature and by comparing it with the values of linear differential equations. $t_1$ is a pole of the transfer function in the invariant linear model in which the input and output are current and temperature, respectively; hence, $t_1$ is found to be related to the state variable used for temperature control. When considering the parameter under heat treatment conditions, $T_{max}$ was found to assume the lowest value, and $t_1$ was irrelevant to the heat treatment.

• Journal of the Korean Magnetics Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.77-81
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• 2013

The objective of this study is experimentally to investigate natural convective heat transfer characteristics of the ferrofluid for a concentric annuli under rotating magnetic field with variations of the revolution and the magnetic field strength. The rotating magnetic field was provided by induction motor with 6 poles and 3 phases and the revolution and the magnetic field strength were controlled by an inverter driver and a voltage meter, respectively. Temperatures of the inner pipe and the outer pipe in the tested concentric annuli were maintained at $30^{\circ}C$ and $25^{\circ}C$, respectively, during the test and the direction of the rotating magnetic field was a counterclockwise. As a result, the natural convective heat transfer characteristics of the ferrofluid for a concentric annuli were increased with the rise of the revolution and magnetic field strength due to the increased heat dissipation between hot side and cold side of the concentric annuli.