PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF THE TURBULENCE MODELS FOR A TURBULENT FLOW IN A TRIANGULAR ROD BUNDLE

A computational fluid dynamics(CFD) analysis has been made for fully developed turbulent flow in a triangular bare rod bundle with a pitch to diameter ratio (P/D) of 1.123. The nonlinear turbulence models predicted the turbulence-driven secondary flow in the triangular subchannel. The nonlinear quadratic κ-ε models by Speziale[1] and Myong-Kasagi[2] predicted turbulence structure in the rod bundle fairly well. The nonlinear quadratic and cubic k-ε models by Shih et al.[3] and Craft et al.[4] showed somewhat weaker anisotropic turbulence. The differential Reynolds stress model by Launder et al.[5} appeared to over predict the turbulence anisotropy in the rod bundle.