• Transactions of the Korean Society of Pressure Vessels and Piping
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.51-59
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• 2017

Steam jets ejected from a rupture zone of high energy pipes may cause damage to adjacent structures. This event could lead to more serious accidents in nuclear power plants. Therefore, to prevent serious accidents, high energy pipes of nuclear power plants are designed according to the ANSI / ANS 58.2 technical standard. However, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) has recently pointed out non-conservatism in existing high energy pipe fracture evaluation methods, and required the assessment of the unsteady load of the jet caused by a potential feedback mechanism as well as the impact range of steam jet, the jet impact loads and the blast wave effects at the initial breakage stage. The potential feedback mechanism refers to a phenomenon in which a vortex formed by impingement jets amplifies vortex itself and induces jet vibration in a shear layer. In this study, CFD methodology using the LES turbulence model is established and numerical analysis is carried out to evaluate the dynamic behavior of impingement jets and the potential feedback mechanism during jet impingement. Obtained results have been compared with an empirical correlation and experiment.