• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.3
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• pp.1002-1012
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• 2024

To remove insoluble fission products, which could possibly cause reactor instability and significantly reduce heat transfer efficiency from primary system of molten salt reactor, a helium bubbling method is employed into a passive molten salt fast reactor. In this regard, two-phase flow behavior of molten salt and helium bubbles was investigated experimentally because the helium bubbles highly affect the circulation performance of working fluid owing to an additional drag force. As the helium flow rate is controlled, the change of key thermal-hydraulic parameters was analyzed through a two-phase experiment. Simultaneously, to assess the applicability of numerical model for the analysis of two-phase flow behavior, the numerical calculation was performed using the OpenFOAM 9.0 code. The accuracy of the numerical analysis code was evaluated by comparing it with the experimental data. Generally, numerical results showed a good agreement with the experiment. However, at the high helium injection rates, the prediction capability for void fraction of helium bubbles was relatively low. This study suggests that the multiphaseEulerFoam solver in OpenFOAM code is effective for predicting the helium bubbling but there exists a room for further improvement by incorporating the appropriate drag flux model and the population balance equation.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2021

To investigate the effect of freshwater discharge on the seawater circulation in the semi-closed harbor, a 3-D hydrodynamic model was applied to the International Ferry Terminal (IFT). The model run is conducted for 45 days (from May 15 to June 30, 2020), and the reproducibility of the model for time-spatial variability of current velocity and salinity was verified by comparison with model results and observation data. There are two sources of freshwater towards inside of the IFT: Han River and water reservoir located in the eastern part of IFT. In residual current velocity results, the two-layer circulation (the seaward flow near surface and the landward flow near bottom)derived from the horizontal salinity gradient in only considering the discharge from a Han River is more developed than that considering both the Han River and water reservoir. This suggests that the impact of freshwater from the reservoir is greater in the IFT areas than that from a Han River. Additionally, the two-layer circulation is stronger in the IFT located in southern part than Incheon South Port located in northern part. This process is formed by the interaction between tidal current propagating into the port and freshwater discharge from a water reservoir, and flow with a low salinity (near 0 psu) is delivered into the IFT. This low salinity distribution reinforces the horizontal stratification in front of the IFT, and maintains a two-layer circulation. Therefore, local sources of freshwater input are considered to estimate for mass transport process associated with the seawater circulation within the harbor and It is necessary to perform a numerical model according to the real-time freshwater flow rate discharged.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.8-16
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• 2013

A core catcher is considered as a promising engineered system to stabilize the molten corium in the containment during a postulated severe accident in a nuclear power plant. Conceptually, the core catcher consists of a carbon steel body, sacrificial material, protection material, and engineered cooling channel. The cooling capacity of the engineered cooling channel should be guaranteed to remove the decay heat of the molten corium. The flow in ex-vessel core catcher is a combined problem of a two-phase flow in the engineered cooling channel and a single-phase natural circulation in the whole core catcher system. In this study, the analysis of the test facility for the core catcher using the CUPID code, which is a three-dimensional thermal-hydraulic code for the simulation of two-phase flows, was carried out to evaluate its cooling capacity.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.1125-1139
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• 2023

The system-integrated modular advanced reactor 100 (SMART100), an integral-type pressurized water small modular reactor, is based on a novel design concept for containment cooling and radioactive material reduction; it is known as the containment pressure and radioactivity suppression system (CPRSS). There is a passive cooling system using a condensation with non-condensable gas in the SMART CPRSS. When a design basis accident such as a small break loss of coolant accident (SBLOCA) occurs, the pressurized low containment area (LCA) of the SMART CPRSS leads to steam condensation in an incontainment refuelling water storage tank (IRWST). Additionally, the steam and non-condensable gas mixture passes through the CPRSS heat exchanger (CHX) submerged in the emergency cooldown tank (ECT) that can partially remove the residual heat. When the steam and non-condensable gas mixture passes through the CHX, the non-condensable gas can interrupt the condensation heat transfer in the CHX and it degrades CHX performance. In this study, condensation heat transfer experiments of steam and non-condensable gas mixture in the natural circulation loop were conducted. The pressure, temperature, and effects of the non-condensable gas were investigated according to the constant inlet steam flow rate with non-condensable gas injections in the loop.

• Transactions of the KSME C: Technology and Education
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.257-264
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• 2015

To maintain sustainability of nuclear energy as an important energy source, both safety problem and Spent Nuclear Fuels(SNFs) problem should be solved. In case of Gen-IV reactors such as fast reactor, SNFs can be used as fuels by using fast neutrons. It can be a suitable treatment method of high-level waste in near future. Liquid metals such as Sodium or Lead-Bismuth Eutectic (LBE) can be possibly used as a coolant to use fast neutrons. In this paper, it was described that natural circulation parameter studies, design analyses, material selections and a completion of facilities. To develop a natural circulation facility, thermal hydraulic analyses were performed. Installation technique of liquid metal natural circulation were secured.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.379-380
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• 2004

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.143.2-143.2
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• 2003

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.675-676
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• 2005

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.96-104
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• 2020

The numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the thermal-fluid phenomena occurred inside the experimental apparatus during a PCCS, used to remove heat released in accidents from a containment of light water nuclear power plant, operation. Numerical simulations of the flow and heat transfer caused by wall condensation inside the containment simulation vessel (CSV), which equipped with 18 vertical heat exchanger tubes, were conducted using the commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS-CFX. Shear stress transport (SST) and the wall condensation model were used for turbulence closure and wall condensation, respectively. The simulation using the actual size of the apparatus. However, rather than simulating the whole experimental apparatus in consideration of the experimental cases, calculation resources, and calculation time, the simulation model was prepared only in CSV. Selective simulation was conducted to verify the effects of non-condensable gas(NC gas) concentration, CSV internal pressure, and wall sub-cooling conditions. First, as a result of the internal flow of CSV, it was observed that downward flow due to condensation occurred surface of the vertical tube and upward flow occurred in the distant place. Natural convection occurred actively around the heat exchanger tube. Due to this rising and falling internal flow, natural circulation occurred actively around the heat exchanger tubes. Next, in order to check the performance of built-in condensation model using according to the non-condensable gas concentration, CSV internal flow and wall sub-cooling, the heat flux values were compared with the experimental results. On average, the results were underestimated with and error of about 25%. In addition, the influence of CSV internal pressure and wall sub-cooling was small, but when the condensate was highly generated due to the low non-condensable gas concentration, the error was large compared to the experimental values. This is considered to be due to the nature of the condensation model of the CFX code. However, in spite of the limitations of CFD, it is valid to use the built-in condensation model of CFD for PCCS performance prediction from a conservative perspective.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.45-54
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• 2007

For a conventional natural-circulation type solar water heater, the pressure head is limited by the height between the storage tank and hot water tap. Therefore, it is difficult to provide sufficient hot water flow rate for general usage. This study deals with a design modification of the storage tank to utilize the tap-water pressure to increase hot-water supply Based on fluid dynamic and heat transfer theories, a series of modeling and simulation is conducted to achieve practical design requirements. An experimental setup is built and tested and the results are compared with theoretical simulation model. The storage tank capacity is 240 l and the outer diameter of piping was 15 mm. Number of tube turns tested are 5, 10, and 15. Starting with initial storage tank temperature of $80^{\circ}C$, the temperature variation of the supply hot water is investigated against time, while maintaining minimum flow rate of 10 1/min. Typical results show that the hot water supply of minimum $30^{\circ}C$ can be maintained for 34 min with tap-water supply pressure of 2.5 atm, The relative errors between modeling and experiments coincide well within 10% in most cases.