• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.1008-1016
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• 2019

In the SG (steam generator) of PWR (pressurized water reactor) for a nuclear plant, hundreds of U-shaped tubes are used for the heat exchanger system. They interact with primary pressurized cooling water flow, generating flow-induced vibration in the secondary flow region. A simplified U-tube model is proposed in this study to apply for experiment and its counterpart computation. Using the commercial code, ANSYS-CFX, we first verified the Moody chart, comparing the straight pipe theory with the results derived from CFD (computational fluid dynamics) analysis. Considering the virtual mass of fluid, we computed the major modes with the low natural frequencies through the comparison with impact hammer test, and then investigated the effect of pump flow in the frequency domain using FFT (fast Fourier transform) analysis of the experimental data. Using two-way fluid-structure interaction module in the CFD code, we studied the influence on mean flow rate to generate the displacement data. A feasible CFD method has been setup in this research that could be applied potentially in the field of nuclear thermal-hydraulics.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.2111-2118
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• 1992

In this study, an analytic model is developed to predict Nusselt numbers for turbulent flow in a rod bundle. Flow channel area is divided into several element channels, and simple algebraic equations of universal velocity and temperature profiles are integrated over each element channel. The integral equations are then added to yield an analytic expression for the nusselt number of a rod bundle. The analytic model reasonably predicts the available heat transfer data.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.3171-3181
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• 2021

This research serves to advance the development of engineering computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computing efficiency for the analysis of pressurized water reactor (PWR) core using rod-type fuel assemblies with mixing vanes (one kind of typical PWR core). In this research, a CFD scheme based on the reconstruction of the initial fine flow field (RIF CFD scheme) is proposed and analyzed. The RIF scheme is based on the quantitative regulation of flow velocities in the rod-type PWR core and the principle that the CFD computing efficiency can be improved greatly by a perfect initialization. In this paper, it is discovered that the RIF scheme can significantly improve the computing efficiency of the CFD computation for the rod-type PWR core. Furthermore, the RIF scheme also can reduce the computing resources needed for effective data storage of the large fluid domain in a rod-type PWR core. Moreover, a flow-ranking RIF CFD scheme is also designed based on the ranking of the flow rate, which enhances the utilization of the flow field with a closed flow rate to reconstruct the fine flow field. The flow-ranking RIF CFD scheme also proved to be very effective in improving the CFD efficiency for the rod-type PWR core.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.3236-3246
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• 2021

Lessons learned from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident directed that multiple failures should be considered more seriously rather than single failure in the licensing bases and safety cases because attempts to take accident management measures could be unsuccessful under the high radiation environment aggravated by multiple failures, such as complete loss of electric power, uncontrollable loss of coolant inventory, failure of essential safety function recovery. In the case of the complete loss of electric power called station blackout (SBO), if there is no mitigation action for recovering safety functions, the reactor core would be overheated, and severe fuel damage could be anticipated due to the failure of the active heat sink. In such a transient condition at CANDU-6 plants, the seal failure of the primary heat transport (PHT) pumps can facilitate a consequent increase in the fuel sheath temperature and eventually lead to degradation of the fuel integrity. Therefore, it is necessary to specify the regulatory guidelines for multiple failures on a licensing basis so that licensees should prepare the accident management measures to prevent or mitigate accident conditions. In order to explore the efficiency of implementing accident management strategies for CANDU-6 plants, this study proposed a realistic accident analysis approach on the SBO transient with multiple-failure sequences such as seal failure of PHT pumps without operator's recovery actions. In this regard, a comparative study for two PHT pump seal failure modes with and without coolant seal leakage was conducted using a best-estimate code to precisely investigate the behaviors of thermal-hydraulic parameters during transient conditions. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis for different PHT pump seal leakage rates was also carried out to examine the effect of leakage rate on the system responses. This study is expected to provide the technical bases to the accident management strategy for unmitigated transient conditions with multiple failures.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Visualization
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.20-26
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• 2017

The two-fluid equations are widely used to simulate two-phase flows in a nuclear reactor. For the two-fluid momentum equation, the wall and interfacial drag terms play an important role in predicting a two-phase flow behavior. Since the bubble density is much smaller than the water density, the bubble accelerates faster than the liquid in a nozzle. As a result, the bubble phase becomes faster than the liquid phase in the nozzle. In contrast, the opposite phenomena occur in the diffuser. The purpose of our study is to experimentally show these behaviors in an area-varying channel such as nozzle and diffuser. Experiments were made of turbulent bubbly flows in an area-varying horizontal channel. The velocities of the bubble and liquid phases were measured by the PIV technique. It was shown that the two-phase velocities were no longer close to each other in the area-varying regions. The bubble was faster than the liquid in the nozzle; in contrast, the bubble was slower than the liquid in the diffuser. Code simulations were also performed using the MARS code. By replacing the original wall drag model in the MARS code with Kim (1)'s wall drag partition model, we obtained the simulation results being consistent with experimental observations.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.80-87
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• 1988

Predicted in this paper are flow distributions in average and hot channels of the reactor core during small and large break LOCAs. Also estimated based on REALP5/MOD2 calculations are the effects of cross flow between channels on LOCA analysis results. It has been so far generally accepted that a single average channel is sufficient for small break LOCA core hydraulic modelling. However, based on these calculation results, hot channel modeling (two channel modeling) is found necessary in order to guarantee more reliable and conservative results. In large break LOCA blowdown phase, the hot channel thermal hydraulics is worse than that of average channel in both cases with the without consideration of cross flow.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.452-459
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• 2023

The core power control is an important issue for the study of dynamic characteristics in China initiative accelerator driven subcritical system (CiADS), which has direct impact on the control strategy and safety analysis process. The CiADS is an experimental facility that is only controlled by the proton beam intensity without considering the control rods in the current engineering design stage. In order to get the optimized operation scheme with the stable and reliable features, the variation of beam intensity using the continuous and periodic control approaches has been adopted, and the change of collimator and the adjusting of duty ratio have been proposed in the power control process. Considering the neutronics and the thermal-hydraulics characteristics in CiADS, the physical model for the core power control has been established by means of the point reactor kinetics method and the lumped parameter method. Moreover, the multi-inputs single-output (MISO) logical structure for the power control process has been constructed using proportional integral derivative (PID) controller, and the meta-heuristic algorithm has been employed to obtain the global optimized parameters for the stable running mode without producing large perturbations. Finally, the verification and validation of the control method have been tested based on the reference scenarios in considering the disturbances of spallation neutron source and inlet temperature respectively, where all the numerical results reveal that the optimization method has satisfactory performance in the CiADS core power control scenarios.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.12-19
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• 1990

The Loss of Offsite Power Transient at 77.5% power which occurred on June 9, 1981 at the Kori Unit 1 PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor) is simulated using the RELAP5/MOD2 system thermal-hydraulics computer code. Major thermal-hydraulic parameters are compared with the available plant data. The comparison of the analysis results with the plant data demonstrates that the RELAP5/MOD2 code has the capability to simulate the thermal-hydraulic behaviour of PWRs under accident conditions of this type with accuracy, except the pressurizer pressure and level. The pressurizer pressure increase is sensitive to the in surge now it is believed that the interracial heat transfer in a horizontal stratified flow regime may be estimated low and the compression effect due to insurge flow may be high. In the nodalization sensitivity study it is found that S/G noding with junctions between bypass plenum and steam dome is preferred to simulate the S/G water level decreasing and avoid the spurious level peak at trubine trip.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.236-247
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• 1983

Analyzed are the the DNBR(Departure from Nucleate Boiling Ratio) sensitivities to variations in various PWR operating parameters utilizing the Korea Nuclear Unit 1(KNU-1) design and operating data. Studied parameters in the analysis are core power level, system pressure, core inlet flow rate, core inlet temperature, enthalpy rise hot channel factor, and axial power peaking factor and axial offset. The calculations are performed using the steady state and transient thermal-hydraulics computer program, COBRA-IV-K, which is the revised version of COBRA-IV-i that has been adapted, partially modified and verified at KAERI. A reference case is established based on the design and operating condition of the KNU-1 reactor core, and this provides a basis for the subsequent sensitivity analysis. From the calculation results it is concluded that the most sensitive parameter in the DNBR thermal design is the coolant core inlet temperature while the axial power peaking factor is the least sensitive.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.04a
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• pp.290-297
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• 2009

A two-phase (gas and liquid) flow analysis solver, named CUPID, has been developed for a realistic simulation of transient two-phase flows in light water nuclear reactor components. In the CUPID solver, a two-fluid three-field model is adopted and the governing equations are solved on unstructured grids for flow analyses in complicated geometries. For the numerical solution scheme, the semi-implicit method of the RELAP5 code, which has been proved to be very stable and accurate for most practical applications of nuclear thermal hydraulics, was used with some modifications for an application to unstructured non-staggered grids. This paper is concerned with the effects of interpolation schemes on the simulation of two-phase flows. In order to stabilize a numerical solution and assure a high numerical accuracy, the second-order upwind scheme is implemented into the CUPID code in the present paper. Some numerical tests have been performed with the implemented scheme and the comparison results between the second-order and first-order upwind schemes are introduced in the present paper. The comparison results among the two interpolation schemes and either the exact solutions or the mesh convergence studies showed the reduced numerical diffusion with the second order scheme.