CFD investigations of helical wire-wrap fuel pin bundle and its comparison with straight wire bundle
Autor: | R. Gajapathy, K. Velusamy |
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Rok vydání: | 2016 |
Předmět: |
Materials science
Turbulence Wire wrap 020209 energy Energy Engineering and Power Technology Reynolds number 02 engineering and technology Heat transfer coefficient Mechanics Nusselt number Coolant Transverse plane symbols.namesake Nuclear Energy and Engineering Bundle 0202 electrical engineering electronic engineering information engineering symbols Safety Risk Reliability and Quality Waste Management and Disposal |
Zdroj: | Progress in Nuclear Energy. 89:57-68 |
ISSN: | 0149-1970 |
Popis: | Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) investigations of a fast reactor fuel pin bundle wrapped with helical and straight spacer wires have been carried out and the advantages of using helical spacer wire have been assessed. The flow and temperature distributions in the fuel pin bundle are obtained by solving the statistically averaged 3-Dimensional conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy along with high Reynolds number k-e turbulence model using a customized CFD code CFDEXPERT. It is seen that due to the helical wire-wrap spacer, the coolant sodium not only flows in axial direction in the fuel pin bundle but also in a transverse direction. This transverse flow enhances mixing of coolant among the sub channels and due to this, the friction factor and heat transfer coefficient of the coolant increase. Estimation of friction factor, Nusselt number, sodium temperature uniformity at the outlet of the bundle and clad hot spot factor which are measures of the extent of coolant mixing and non-homogeneity in heat transfer coefficient around fuel pin are paid critical attention. It is seen that the friction factor and Nusselt number are higher (by 25% and 15% respectively) for the helical wire wrap pin bundle compared to straight wire bundle. It is seen that for 217 fuel pin bundle the maximum clad temperature is 750 K for straight wire case and the same for helical wire is 720 K due to the presence of transverse flow. The maximum temperature occurs at the location of the gap between pin and wire. The ΔT between the bulk sodium in the central sub-channel and peripheral sub-channel is 30 K for straight wire and the same for helical wire is 18 K due to the presence of secondary transverse flow which makes the outlet temperature more uniform. The hotspot factor and the hot channel factors predicted by CFD simulation are 10% lower than that used in conventional safety analysis indicating the conservatism in the safety analysis. |
Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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