• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1313-1320
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• 1993

Flow patterns inside the riser section and the effects of the heater inlet-and exit-restrictions, liquid charging level and the heater inlet subcooling on the flow characteristics inside an open two-phase natural circulation loop were studied experimentally. Three basic circulation modes were observed ; periodic circulation (A)(flow oscillations with incubation(no boiling) period), continuous circulations(stable operation mode with no flow oscillations), and periodic circulation (B) (flow oscillations with continuous boiling). The circulation rate increases and then decreases with the increase of the heating rate and the maximum circulation rate appears with the continuous circulation mode. The decrease of the inlet-restriction or the increase of the exitrestriction destabilizes the system. When the liquid charging level or the inlet subcooling decreases, the continuous circulation mode starts at the lower heating rate and the system is stabilized.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.1-7
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• 2015

The operation of the natural circulation type solar heating systems with facade integrated collector was analyzed by experiment. Two different types of flat plate solar collectors were used for these experiments. One was for the normal flat plate solar collector with the size of 1m*2m and the other was for the large size solar collector with $4m^2$(1m*4m). The experiments were carried out to investigate the effect of the series or parallel connection method on the performance of the collectors. As a result, the solar thermal system which is installed on the wall or facade would be applicable for the natural circulation type if the system design reflects various parameters, including collector connecting method(series or parallel), to provide enough vertical height between collector and storage tank, and to reduce pressure loss due to collector and piping network, etc. The natural circulation type of solar thermal system as proposed in this study can increase the system reliability by removing or minimizing the use of the components such as pump, controller, sensors which may cause serious troubles of the system for a long-time operation

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3086-3091
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• 2007

When a molten corium is relocated in a lower head of a reactor vessel, the ERVC (External Reactor Vessel Cooling) system is actuated as coolant is supplied into a reactor cavity to remove a decay heat from the molten corium during a severe accident. To achieve this severe accident mitigation strategy, the two-phase natural circulation flow in the annular gap between the external reactor vessel and the insulation should be formed sufficiently by designing the coolant inlet/outlet area and gap size adequately on the insulation device. For this reason, one-dimensional natural circulation flow tests were conducted to estimate the natural circulation flow under the ERVC condition of APR1400. The experimental facility is one-dimensional and scaled-down as the half height and 1/238 rectangular channel area of the APR1400 reactor vessel. As the water inlet area increased, the natural circulation mass flow rate asymptotically increased, that is, it converged at a specific value. And the circulation mass flow rate also increased as the outlet area, injected air flow rate, and outlet height increased. But the circulation mass flow rate was not changed along with the external water level variation if the water level was higher than the outlet height.

• Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.46-56
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• 1998

This study was performed to investigate thermal performances of two different types of flat-plate solar collector systems; natural circulation system and forced circulation system. Conclusions obtained from this study are summarized as follows; 1) In the natural circulation system, the total heat amounts retrieved by starting recovery soon after sunrise were ranged from 10.28 to 17.20MJ/m$^2$, while the total heat amounts retrieved by starting recovery after sunset were ranged from 5.31 to 10.77MJ/m$^2$. 2) The collector efficiency in natural circulation system were ranged from 51.1% to 54.1% when the collected heat was retrieved after sunrise and were 65.8~78.0% when the collected heat was retrieved soon after sunset. 3) According to the regression analysis between fluid flow rates and fluid temperature difference at inlet and outlet of collector pipe, there was high regressive corelations with regression coefficient, r, of 0.982. 4) The collector efficiencies estimated for forced circulation system were 73.1~88.6%, and 78.4~94.8%, and 64.2%~74.5%, respectively when fluid circulation rates were 4.2 l/min, and 7.0 l/min, respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.233-240
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• 2024

The wall friction correlations of oscillatory natural circulation loops are highly loop-specific, making it difficult to perform 1-D system simulations before obtaining specific experimental data. To better predict the friction characteristics, the nonlinear dynamics of a toroidal single-phase natural circulation loop were numerically investigated, and the transition effect was considered. The k-k_L-ω transitional turbulence and k-ω SST turbulence models were used to compute the flow characteristics of the loop under different heating powers varying from 0.48 to 1.0 W/cm², and the results of both models were compared with previous experiments. The mass flow rates and friction factors predicted by the k-k_L-ω model showed a better agreement with the experimental data than the results of the k-ω SST model. The oscillation frequencies calculated using both models agreed well with the experimental data. The k-k_L-ω transitional turbulence model provided better friction-factor predictions in oscillatory natural circulation loops because it can reproduce the temporal and spatial variation of the wall shear stress more accurately by capturing the movement of laminar, transition turbulent zones inside unstable natural circulation loops. This study shows that transition effects are a possible explanation for the highly loop-specific friction correlations observed in various oscillatory natural circulation loops.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.49-58
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• 2009

This study was done to provide a case model with a concept of environmental integration based on the water circulation system. Area of interest (AOI) is the Eastern Pangyo New Town area, which has several advantages in adaptation of a water circulation system. The AOI has a potential of maintaining water resources, and has a good condition to construct the water circulation system. Research done for the purpose of the establishment of the water circulation system in the Eastern Pangyo New Town shows the following. The main sources of water supply in the water circulation system in the Eastern Pangyo New Town is from two subway stations and runoff water, along with the natural water flowing from the mountains, rain water, and stream water. It was determined that more than 35,000 tons of water would be needed for the creation of water circulation system at the Eastern Pangyo. If the creation of infrastructure for the use of runoff and rain water as well as the periodic management can be provided, it can serve as the new model for a new city with water circulation system. In addition, since the Eastern Pangyo New Town water circulation system can secure enough amount of water resources, natural drainage system (NDS) in which it can be in dry condition in non-rainy days, is applied and connected to the typical waterways. Such water circulation system has many positive aspects including the wise use of water resources, and providing wild Life animals corridors and habitats. Also, the water circulation system can lead to the environmental education to the residents and visitors on environmental awareness of the water circulation system and their environment.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.446-454
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• 2021

Critical heat flux (CHF) has traditionally been evaluated using look-up tables or empirical correlations for nuclear power plants. However, under complex moving condition, it is necessary to reconsider the CHF characteristics since the conventional CHF prediction methods would no longer be applicable. In this paper, the additional forces caused by motions have been added to the annular film dryout (AFD) mechanistic model to investigate the effect of moving condition on CHF. Moreover, a theoretical model of the natural circulation loop with additional forces is established to reflect the natural circulation characteristics of the loop system. By coupling the system loop with the AFD mechanistic model, a CHF prediction program called NACOM for natural circulation loop under moving condition is developed. The effects of three operating conditions, namely stationary, inclination and rolling, on the CHF of the loop are then analyzed. It can be clearly seen that the moving condition has an adverse effect on the CHF in the natural circulation system. For the calculation parameters in this paper, the CHF can be reduced by 25% compared with the static value, which indicates that it is important to consider the effects of moving condition to retain adequate safety margin in subsequent thermal-hydraulic designs.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.308-320
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• 1989

The objective of this work is to investigate the effects of diminished primary coolant inventory and the presence of noncondensible gas during single- and two-phase natural circulation in a PWR loop model. The test model was composed of two loops with a U-tube heat exchanger in each loop. Through a series of tests, it has been confirmed that the two-phase natural circulation flow rates were greatly dependent on primary coolant inventory as previous investigators observed. The primary coolant inventory limit to maintain two-phase natural circulation was found to be the amount of the coolant necessary to keep the waterline of the coolant nozzle hole center in this model. The presence of noncondensible gas impede the single-phase natural circulation, but it did not affect the two-phase natural circulation significantly.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.72-83
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• 2022

This paper presents a numerical investigation of two-phase natural circulation flows established when external reactor vessel cooling is applied to a severe accident of the APR1400 reactor for the in-vessel retention of the core melt. The coolability limit due to external reactor vessel cooling is associated with the natural circulation flow rate around the lower head of the reactor vessel. For an elaborate prediction of the natural circulation flow rate using a thermal-hydraulic system code, MARS-KS1.5, a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation is conducted to estimate the flow rate and pressure distribution of a liquid-state coolant at the brink of significant void generation. The CFD calculation results are used to determine the loss coefficient at major flow junctions, where substantial pressure losses are expected, in the nodalization scheme of the MARS-KS code such that the single-phase flow rate is the same as that predicted via CFD simulations. Subsequently, the MARS-KS analysis is performed for the two-phase natural circulation regime, and the transient behavior of the main thermal-hydraulic variables is investigated.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.92-98
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• 2018

The flow of cooling water in a passive containment cooling system (PCCS), used to remove heat released in design basis accidents from a concrete containment of light water nuclear power plant, was conducted in order to investigate the thermo-fluid equilibrium among many parallel tubes of PCCS. Numerical simulations of the subcooled boiling flow within a coolant loop of a PCCS, which will be installed in innovative pressurized-water reactor (PWR), were conducted using the commercially available computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS-CFX. Shear stress transport (SST) and the RPI model were used for turbulence closure and subcooled flow boiling, respectively. As the first step, the simplified geometry of PCCS with 36 tubes was modeled in order to reduce computational resource. Even and uneven thermal loading conditions were applied at the outer walls of parallel tubes for the simulation of the coolant flow in the PCCS at the initial phase of accident. It was observed that the natural circulation maintained in single-phase for all even and uneven thermal loading cases. For uneven thermal loading cases, coolant velocity in each tube were increased according to the applied heat flux. However, the flows were mixed well in the header and natural circulation of the whole cooling loop was not affected by uneven thermal loading significantly.