• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.269-278
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• 2013

In this study, in order to examine the applicability of computational fluid dynamics with the porous model to the analysis of APR+ (Advanced Power Reactor Plus) internal flow, simulation was conducted with the commercial multi-purpose computational fluid dynamics software, ANSYS CFX V.14. In addition, among the various reactor internals, the effect of flow skirt geometry on reactor internal flow was investigated. It was concluded that the porous model for some reactor internal structures could adequately predict the hydraulic characteristics inside the reactor in a qualitative manner. If sufficient computation resource is available, the predicted core inlet flow distribution is expected to be more accurate, by considering the real geometry of the internal structures, especially located in the upstream of the core inlet. Finally, depending on the shape of the flow skirt, the flow distribution was somewhat different locally. The standard deviation of the mass flow rate (${\sigma}$) for the original shape of flow skirt was smaller, than that for the modified shape of flow skirt. This means that the original shape of the flow skirt may give a more uniform distribution of mass flow rate at the core inlet plane, which may be more desirable for the core cooling.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2001.07d
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• pp.2166-2168
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• 2001

Reactor Noise is defined as the fluctuations of measured instrumentation signals during full-power operation of reactor which have informations on reactor system dynamics such as neutron kinetics. The Reactor internal structures which consist of many complex components are subjected to flow-induced vibration due to high temperature and pressure in reactor coolant system. The above flow-induced vibration causes degradation of structural integrity of the reactor and may result in loosing mechanical binding component which might impact other equipment and component or cause flow blockage. It is important to analyze reactor noise signal for the early detection of potential problem or failure in order to diagnosis reactor integrity in the point of view of safety and plant economics. Detailed design of hardware diagnostic system reactor internal structures using neutron noise(RIDS).

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2002.07d
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• pp.2252-2254
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• 2002

The Reactor internal structures which consist of many complex components are subjected to flow-induced vibration due to high temperature and pressure in Reactor coolant system. The above flow-induced vibration causes degradation of structural integrity of the Reactor and may result in loosing mechanical binding component which might impact other equipment and component or cause flow blockage. It is important to analyze reactor noise signal for the early detection of potential problem or failure in order to diagnosis reactor integrity in the point of view of safety and plant economics. Detailed composition of diagnostic system reactor internal structures using neutron noise(RIDS).

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.9
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• pp.855-862
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• 2013

A series of 1/5 scale-down reactor flow distribution tests had been conducted to determine the hydraulic characteristics of an APR+ (Advanced Power Reactor Plus), which were used as the input data for an open core thermal margin analysis code. In this study, to examine the applicability of computational fluid dynamics with the porous model to the analysis of APR+ internal flow, simulations were conducted using the commercial multi-purpose computational fluid dynamics software ANSYS CFX V.14. It was concluded that the porous domain approach for some reactor internal structures could adequately predict the flow characteristics inside a reactor in a qualitative manner. If sufficient computational resources are available, the predicted core inlet flow distribution is expected to be more accurate by considering the real geometry of the internal structures, especially upstream of the core inlet.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.25-31
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• 1997

The variations of gas hold-up, overall volumetric oxygen mass transfer coefficients and liquid circulation velocity in an internal loop reactor were investigated to manifest scale-up effect. The relationship between superficial gas velocity and gas hold-up were found as Ugr = 0.045 $\varepsilon$r in the pilot-scale and Ugr = 0.056 $\varepsilon$r in the bench-scale reactor. The overall volumetric oxygen mass tractsfer coefficient, KLa was slightly increased in the pilot-scale than in the bench-scale reactor. Flow regime was changed from the bubble flow to the churn-turbulent flow when the superficial gas velocity reached to 3.5 - 4 cm/sec in the pilot-scale.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.220-227
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• 2015

Complex thermal hydraulic characteristics exist inside the reactor because the reactor internals consist of fuel assembly, internal structures and so on. In this study, to examine the effect of Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS)-based two-equation turbulence models in the analysis of flow distribution inside a 1/5 scaled-down APR+, simulation was performed using the commercial computational fluid dynamics software, ANSYS CFX R.13 and the predicted results were compared with the measured data. It was concluded that reactor internal flow pattern was locally different depending on the turbulence models. In addition, the prediction accuracy of k-${\varepsilon}$ model was superior to that of other two-equation turbulence models and this model predicted the relatively uniform distribution of core inlet flow rate.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.12
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• pp.2743-2759
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• 2020

A detailed computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation analysis model was developed using ANSYS CFX 16.1 and analyzed to simulate the basic design and internal flow characteristics of a 180 MW small modular reactor (SMR) with a natural circulation flow system. To analyze the natural circulation phenomena without a pump for the initial flow generation inside the reactor, the flow characteristics were evaluated for each output assuming various initial powers relative to the critical condition. The eddy phenomenon and the flow imbalance phenomenon at each output were confirmed, and a flow leveling structure under the core was proposed for an optimization of the internal natural circulation flow. In the steady-state analysis, the temperature distribution and heat transfer speed at each position considering an increase in the output power of the core were calculated, and the conceptual design of the SMR had a sufficient thermal margin (31.4 K). A transient model with the output ranging from 0% to 100% was analyzed, and the obtained values were close to the T_hot and T_cold temperature difference value estimated in the conceptual design of the SMR. The K-factor was calculated from the flow analysis data of the CFX model and applied to an analysis model in RELAP5/MOD3.3, the optimal analysis system code for nuclear power plants. The CFX analysis results and RELAP analysis results were evaluated in terms of the internal flow characteristics per core output. The two codes, which model the same nuclear power plant, have different flow analysis schemes but can be used complementarily. In particular, it will be useful to carry out detailed studies of the timing of the steam generator intervention when an SMR is activated. The thermal and hydraulic characteristics of the models that applied porous media to the core & steam generators and the models that embodied the entire detail shape were compared and analyzed. Although there were differences in the ability to analyze detailed flow characteristics at some low powers, it was confirmed that there was no significant difference in the thermal hydraulic characteristics' analysis of the SMR system's conceptual design.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.271-277
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• 2014

Internal structures, especially those located in the upstream of a reactor core, may have a significant influence on the core inlet flow rate distribution depending on both their shapes and the relative distance between the internal structures and the core inlet. In this study, to examine the effect of the reactor internal structure geometry treatment method on the prediction accuracy for the scale-down APR+ flow distribution, simulations with real geometry modeling were conducted using ANSYS CFX R.14, a commercial computational fluid dynamics software, and the predicted results were compared with those of the porous medium assumption. It was concluded that the core inlet flow distribution could be predicted more accurately by considering the real geometry of the internal structures located in the upstream of the core inlet. Therefore, if sufficient computational resources are available, an exact representation of these internal structures, for example, lower support structure bottom plate and ICI nozzle support plate, is needed for the accurate simulation of the reactor internal flow.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2002.08a
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• pp.47-50
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• 2002

The numerical simulation of a 271-rod fuel assembly of nuclear Liquid-Metal Fast Reactor (LMFR) with an infernal blockage has been carried out. Internal blockage within a subassembly is addressed in the safety assessment because it potentially has very serious consequences for the reactor as a whole. Three dimensional calculations were performed using the SABRE4 computer code for the range of blockage positions and sizes to investigate the seriousness and detectability of the internal blockage. The magnitude and location of the peak temperatures together with the temperature distribution at the subassembly exit were calculated in order to look at the potential for damage within the subassembly, and the possibility of blockage detection. The analysis result shows that the 6-subchannel blockage causes large temperature rise within a assembly with practically no change in mixed mean temperature at the assembly exit.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.8
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• pp.3017-3029
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• 2023

In the late in-vessel phase of a nuclear reactor severe accident, the internal heat transfer and crust evolution during the debris bed melting process have important effects on the thermal load distribution along the vessel wall, and further affect the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) failure mode and the state of melt during leakage. This study coupled the phase change model and large eddy simulation to investigate the variations of the temperature, melt liquid fraction, crust and heat flux distributions during the debris bed melting process in the hypothetical severe accident of HPR1000. The results indicated that the heat flow towards the vessel wall and upper surface were similar at the beginning stage of debris melting, but the upward heat flow increased significantly as the development of the molten pool. The maximum heat flux towards the vessel wall reached 0.4 MW/m². The thickness of lower crust decreased as the debris melting. It was much thicker at the bottom region with the azimuthal angle below 20° and decreased rapidly at the azimuthal angle around 20-50°. The maximum and minimum thicknesses were 2 and 90 mm, respectively. By contrast, the distribution of upper crust was uniform and reached stable state much earlier than the lower crust, with the thickness of about 10 mm. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis of initial condition indicated that as the decrease of time interval from reactor scram to debris bed dried-out, the maximum debris temperature and melt fraction became larger, the lower crust thickness became thinner, but the upper crust had no significant change. The sensitivity analysis of in-vessel retention (IVR) strategies indicated that the passive and active external reactor vessel cooling (ERVC) had little effect on the internal heat transfer and crust evolution. In the case not considering the internal reactor vessel cooling (IRVC), the upper crust was not obvious.