• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.50 no.1
• /
• pp.54-67
• /
• 2018

There have been recent efforts to establish methods for high-fidelity and multi-physics simulation with coupled thermal-hydraulic (T/H) and neutronics codes for the entire core of a light water reactor under accident conditions. Considering the computing power necessary for a pin-by-pin analysis of the entire core, subchannel-scale T/H analysis is considered appropriate to achieve acceptable accuracy in an optimal computational time. In the present study, the applicability of in-house code CUPID of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute was extended to the subchannel-scale T/H analysis. CUPID is a component-scale T/H analysis code, which uses three-dimensional two-fluid models with various closure models and incorporates a highly parallelized numerical solver. In this study, key models required for a subchannel-scale T/H analysis were implemented in CUPID. Afterward, the code was validated against four subchannel experiments under unheated and heated single-phase incompressible flow conditions. Thereafter, a subchannel-scale T/H analysis of the entire core for an Advanced Power Reactor 1400 reactor core was carried out. For the high-fidelity simulation, detailed geometrical features and individual rod power distributions were considered in this demonstration. In this study, CUPID shows its capability of reproducing key phenomena in a subchannel and dealing with the subchannel-scale whole core T/H analysis.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.25 no.6
• /
• pp.707-717
• /
• 2020

In this paper, analysis of thermal post-buckling behaviors of sandwich nanobeams with two layers of multi-phase magneto-electro-thermo-elastic (METE) composites have been presented considering geometric imperfection effects. Multi-phase METE material is composed form piezoelectric and piezo-magnetic constituents for which the material properties can be controlled based on the percentages of the constituents. Nonlinear governing equations of sandwich nanobeam are derived based on nonlocal elasticity theory together with classic thin beam model and an analytical solution is provided. It will be shown that post-buckling behaviors of sandwich nanobeam in thermo-electro-magnetic field depend on the constituent's percentages. Buckling temperature of sandwich nanobeam is also affected by nonlocal scale factor, magnetic field intensity and electrical voltage.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.49 no.6
• /
• pp.1339-1345
• /
• 2017

In the framework of the EU funded project NURESAFE, the subchannel code CTF and the neutronics code DYN3D were integrated and coupled on the NURESIM platform. The developments achieved during this 3-year project include assembly-level and pin-by-pin multiphysics thermal hydraulics/neutron kinetics coupling. In order to test this coupling, a PWR rod ejection transient was simulated on a MOX/UOX minicore. The transient is simulated using two different models of the minicore. In the first simulation, both codes model the core with an assembly-wise resolution. In the second simulation, a pin-by-pin fuel-centered model is used in CTF for the central assembly, and a pin power reconstruction method is applied in DYN3D. The analysis shows the influence of the different models on global parameters, such as the power and the average fuel temperature, but also on local parameters such as the maximum fuel temperature.

• Steel and Composite Structures
• /
• v.19 no.5
• /
• pp.1221-1236
• /
• 2015

Since the coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE) between concrete and GFRP, steel and GFRP are quite different, GFRP laminates with different laminas stacking-sequence present different thermal behavior and currently there is no specification on mechanical properties of GFRP laminates, it is necessary to investigate the thermal influence on composite girder with stay-in-place (SIP) bridge deck at different levels and on different scales. This paper experimentally and theoretically investigated the CTE of GFRP at lamina's and laminate's level on micro-mechanics scales. The theoretical CTE values of laminas and laminates agreed well with test results, indicating that designers could obtain thermal properties of GFRP laminates with different lamina stacking-sequence through micro-mechanics methods. On the basis of the CTE tests and theoretical analysis, the thermal behaviors of composite girder with hybrid GFRP-concrete deck were studied numerically and theoretically on macro-mechanics scales. The theoretical results of concrete and steel components of composite girder agreed well with FE results, but the theoretical results of GFRP profiles were slightly larger than FE and tended to be conservative at a safety level.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
• /
• v.32 no.9
• /
• pp.787-792
• /
• 2015

Recently, 3D printing technology is a hot issue in various industrial fields. According to the user's application, it allows for the free form fabrication method to be utilized in a wide range. The powder based fusion technique is one of the 3D printing methods. When using this method it is possible to apply the various binder jetting techniques such as piezo, thermal bubble jet, dispenser and so on. In this paper, a multi thermal bubble ink jet was integrated for jetting of powder binding material and developing a power fused 3D printing system. For high quality 3D printing parts, it needs an analysis and evaluation of the behavior of the thermal bubble ink jet head. In the experiment, a correlation between jetting binder quantity and layer thickness of powder was investigated, and a 3D part model was fabricated, which was used by measuring the scale factor.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.52 no.8
• /
• pp.1626-1637
• /
• 2020

This work covers an important point of the benchmark released by the expert group on Uncertainty Analysis in Modeling of Light Water Reactors. This ambitious benchmark aims to determine the uncertainty in light water reactors systems and processes in all stages of calculation, with emphasis on multi-physics (coupled) and multi-scale simulations. The Gesellschaft für Anlagen und Reaktorsicherheit methodology is used to propagate the thermal-hydraulic uncertainty of macroscopic parameters through TRACE5.0p3/PARCSv3.0 coupled code. The main innovative points achieved in this work are i) a new thermal-hydraulic model is developed with a highly-accurate 3D core discretization plus an iterative process is presented to adjust the 3D bypass flow, ii) a control rod insertion occurrence -which data is obtained from a real PWR test- is used as a transient simulation, iii) two approaches are used for the propagation process: maximum response where the uncertainty and sensitivity analysis is performed for the maximum absolute response and index dependent where the uncertainty and sensitivity analysis is performed at each time step, and iv) RESTING MATLAB code is developed to automate the model generation process and, then, propagate the thermal-hydraulic uncertainty. The input uncertainty information is found in related literature or, if not found, defined based on expert judgment. This paper, first, presents the Gesellschaft für Anlagen und Reaktorsicherheit methodology to propagate the uncertainty in thermal-hydraulic macroscopic parameters and, then, shows the results when the methodology is applied to a PWR reactor.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.53 no.10
• /
• pp.3207-3216
• /
• 2021

Three-dimensional structures of a vortical flow field and heat transfer characteristics in a partially blocked 7-pin fuel assembly mock-up of sodium-cooled fast reactor have been investigated through a numerical analysis using a commercial computational fluid dynamics code, ANSYS CFX. The simulation with the SST turbulence model agrees well with the experimental data of outlet and cladding wall temperatures. From the analysis on the limiting streamline at the wall, multi-scale vortexes developed in axial direction were found around the blockage. The vortex core has a high cladding wall temperature, and the attachment line has a low cladding wall temperature. The small-scale vortex structures significantly enhance the convective heat transfer because it increases the turbulent mixing and the turbulence kinetic energy. The large-scale vortex structures supply thermal energy near the heated cladding wall surface. It is expected that control of the vortex structures in the fuel assembly plays a significant role in the convective heat transfer enhancement. Furthermore, the blockage plate and grid spacer increase the pressure drop to about 36% compared to the bare case.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.162-167
• /
• 2005

As the properties of porous materials during the drying process relate to the atomistic defects of heterogeneous materials such as dislocation, grain, grain boundary, pore, etc., the knowledge of nano-scale analysis is needed in order to accurately analyze the drying process for porous materials. In this study, the atomic behavior of porous materials Is statically predicted by using the molecular dynamics simulation and the nano-scale material properties are computed. The elastic modulus, thermal expansion coefficient, and volumetric heat capacity numerically found from the molecular dynamics simulation are compared with those of experiment and theory and proved the accuracy.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.54 no.1
• /
• pp.97-109
• /
• 2022

Multi-dimensional coupling analysis is a research hot spot in nuclear reactor thermal hydraulic study and both the full-scale system transient response and local key three-dimensional thermal hydraulic phenomenon could be obtained simultaneously, which can achieve the balance between efficiency and accuracy in the numerical simulation of nuclear reactor. A one-dimensional to three-dimensional (1D-3D) coupling platform for the nuclear reactor multi-dimensional analysis is developed by XJTU-NuTheL (Nuclear Thermal-hydraulic Laboratory at Xi'an Jiaotong University) based on the CFD code Fluent and system code RELAP5 through the Dynamic Link Library (DLL) technology and Fluent user-defined functions (UDF). In this paper, the International Standard Problem (ISP) No. 43 is selected as the benchmark and the rapid boron dilution transient in the nuclear reactor is studied with the coupling code. The code validation is conducted first and the numerical simulation results show good agreement with the experimental data. The three-dimensional flow and temperature fields in the downcomer are analyzed in detail during the transient scenarios. The strong reverse flow is observed beneath the inlet cold leg, causing the de-borated water slug to mainly diffuse in the circumferential direction. The deviations between the experimental data and the transients predicted by the coupling code are also discussed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.41 no.10
• /
• pp.1347-1360
• /
• 2009

A multi-dimensional component for the thermal-hydraulic system analysis code, MARS, was developed for a more realistic three-dimensional analysis of nuclear systems. A three-dimensional and two-fluid model for a two-phase flow in Cartesian and cylindrical coordinates was employed. The governing equations and physical constitutive relationships were extended from those of a one-dimensional version. The numerical solution method adopted a semi-implicit and finite-difference method based on a staggered-grid mesh and a donor-cell scheme. The relevant length scale was very coarse compared to commercial computational fluid dynamics tools. Thus a simple Prandtl's mixing length turbulence model was applied to interpret the turbulent induced momentum and energy diffusivity. Non drag interfacial forces were not considered as in the general nuclear system codes. Several conceptual cases with analytic solutions were chosen and analyzed to assess the fundamental terms. RPI air-water and UPTF 7 tests were simulated and compared to the experimental data. The simulation results for the RPI air-water two-phase flow experiment showed good agreement with the measured void fraction. The simulation results for the UPTF downcomer test 7 were compared to the experiment data and the results from other multi-dimensional system codes for the ECC delivery flow.