Nuclear Engineering and Technology

Korean Nuclear Society (한국원자력학회)
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Experimental study of turbulent flow in a scaled RPV model by PIV technology

  • Luguo Liu (Science and Technology on Reactor System Design Technology Laboratory, Nuclear Power Institute of China) ;
  • Wenhai Qu (School of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University) ;
  • Yu Liu (Science and Technology on Reactor System Design Technology Laboratory, Nuclear Power Institute of China) ;
  • Jinbiao Xiong (School of Nuclear Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University) ;
  • Songwei Li (Science and Technology on Reactor System Design Technology Laboratory, Nuclear Power Institute of China) ;
  • Guangming Jiang (Science and Technology on Reactor System Design Technology Laboratory, Nuclear Power Institute of China)
  • Received : 2023.11.05
  • Accepted : 2024.02.03
  • Published : 2024.07.25
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Abstract

The turbulent flow in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) of pressurized water reactor (PWR) is important for the flow rate distribution at core inlet. Thus, it is vital to study the turbulent flow phenomena in RPV. However, the complicated fluid channel consisted of inner structures of RPV will block or refract the laser sheet of particle image velocimetry (PIV). In this work, the matched index of refraction (MIR) of sodium iodide (NaI) solution and acrylic was applied to support optical path for flow field measurements by PIV in the 1/10th scaled-down RPV model. The experimental results show detailed velocity field at different locations inside the scaled-down RPV model. Some interesting phenomena are obtained, including the non-negligible counterflow at the corner of nozzle edge, the high downward flowing stream in downcomer, large vortices above vortex suppression plate in lower plenum. And the intensity of counterflow and the strength of vortices increase as inlet flow rate increasing. Finally, the case of asymmetry flow was also studied. The turbulent flow has different pattern compared with the case of symmetrical inlet flow rate, which may affect the uniformity of flow distribution at the core inlet.

Keywords

References

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