• Title/Summary/Keyword: thermal hydraulic analysis

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Sensitivity analysis of thermal-hydraulic parameters to study the corrosion intensity in nuclear power plant steam generators

  • Tashakor, S.;Afsari, A.;Hashemi-Tilehnoee, M.
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.51 no.2
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    • pp.394-401
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    • 2019
  • The failure of steam generators (SGs) due to corrosion is one of the most important problems in power plants. Impurities usually accumulate in the hot sides of SG and form deposits on the SG surfaces. In this paper, the sensitivity analysis of the accumulation of water impurities in the heat exchangers of nuclear power plants is presented. The convection-diffusion equation of the liquid phase on the heated surfaces is derived and then solved by the finite volume method. Also, the effects of the thermal-hydraulic parameters in the form of dimensionless numbers, such as $Pe_q$, $Pe_u$, $k_q$(relative solubility of impurity between the steam and water) on the impurities concentration are studied.

Investigation of thermal hydraulic behavior of the High Temperature Test Facility's lower plenum via large eddy simulation

  • Hyeongi Moon ;Sujong Yoon;Mauricio Tano-Retamale ;Aaron Epiney ;Minseop Song;Jae-Ho Jeong
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.55 no.10
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    • pp.3874-3897
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    • 2023
  • A high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was performed using the Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model for the lower plenum of the High-Temperature Test Facility (HTTF), a ¼ scale test facility of the modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor (MHTGR) managed by Oregon State University. In most next-generation nuclear reactors, thermal stress due to thermal striping is one of the risks to be curiously considered. This is also true for HTGRs, especially since the exhaust helium gas temperature is high. In order to evaluate these risks and performance, organizations in the United States led by the OECD NEA are conducting a thermal hydraulic code benchmark for HTGR, and the test facility used for this benchmark is HTTF. HTTF can perform experiments in both normal and accident situations and provide high-quality experimental data. However, it is difficult to provide sufficient data for benchmarking through experiments, and there is a problem with the reliability of CFD analysis results based on Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes to analyze thermal hydraulic behavior without verification. To solve this problem, high-fidelity 3-D CFD analysis was performed using the LES model for HTTF. It was also verified that the LES model can properly simulate this jet mixing phenomenon via a unit cell test that provides experimental information. As a result of CFD analysis, the lower the dependency of the sub-grid scale model, the closer to the actual analysis result. In the case of unit cell test CFD analysis and HTTF CFD analysis, the volume-averaged sub-grid scale model dependency was calculated to be 13.0% and 9.16%, respectively. As a result of HTTF analysis, quantitative data of the fluid inside the HTTF lower plenum was provided in this paper. As a result of qualitative analysis, the temperature was highest at the center of the lower plenum, while the temperature fluctuation was highest near the edge of the lower plenum wall. The power spectral density of temperature was analyzed via fast Fourier transform (FFT) for specific points on the center and side of the lower plenum. FFT results did not reveal specific frequency-dominant temperature fluctuations in the center part. It was confirmed that the temperature power spectral density (PSD) at the top increased from the center to the wake. The vortex was visualized using the well-known scalar Q-criterion, and as a result, the closer to the outlet duct, the greater the influence of the mainstream, so that the inflow jet vortex was dissipated and mixed at the top of the lower plenum. Additionally, FFT analysis was performed on the support structure near the corner of the lower plenum with large temperature fluctuations, and as a result, it was confirmed that the temperature fluctuation of the flow did not have a significant effect near the corner wall. In addition, the vortices generated from the lower plenum to the outlet duct were identified in this paper. It is considered that the quantitative and qualitative results presented in this paper will serve as reference data for the benchmark.