• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.329-337
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• 2016

As a turbulence-enhancing device, a mixing vane, which is installed at a spacer grid of the fuel assembly, plays an important role in improving convective heat transfer by generating either swirl flow in the subchannels or cross flow between the fuel rod gaps. Therefore, both the geometric configuration and the arrangement pattern of a mixing vane are important factors in determining the performance of a mixing vane. In this study, in order to examine the flow-distribution features inside a $5{\times}5$ fuel assembly with split-type mixing vanes, which was used in the benchmark calculation of the OECD/NEA, we conduct simulations using the commercial computational fluid dynamics software, ANSYS CFX R.14. We compare the predicted results with measured data obtained from the MATiS-H (Measurement and Analysis of Turbulent Mixing in Subchannels-Horizontal) test facility. In addition, we discuss the effect of the split-type mixing vanes on the flow pattern inside the fuel assembly.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.1210-1215
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• 2002

The spent fuel handling tool is used to handle the refuel bundle and treated by hoist rope on the bridge crane. The new developed handling tool of NPP(Nuclear Power Plant) should be conformed the structural stability under earthquake condition. In this study, the stress and seismic analysis of the handling tool are performed by finite element method. Using the Floor Response Spectrum(FRS) obtained through the time history analysis, the modal and seismic analysis under Operating Basis Earthquake(OBE) and Safe Shutdown Earthquake(SSE) load conditions are carried out. Total 4 cases of different locations of the trolly and the hook are investigated. With the spring-damper element, the tension analysis of hoist rope is conducted. The stability of handling tool under earthquake load condition is conformed with regulatory guide.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.40 no.12
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• pp.815-824
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• 2016

The fuel assembly for pressurized water reactor (PWR) consists of fuel rod bundle, spacer grid and bottom/top end fittings. The cooling water in high pressure and temperature is introduced in lower plenum of reactor core and directed to upper plenum through the subchannel which is formed between the fuel rods. The main thermal-hydraulic performance parameters for the PWR fuel are pressure drop and critical heat flux in normal operating condition, and quenching time in accident condition. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) has been developing an advanced PWR fuel, dual-cooled annular fuel and accident tolerant fuel for the enhancement of fuel performance and the localization. For the key thermal-hydraulic technology development of PWR fuel, the KAERI LWR fuel team has conducted the experiments for pressure drop, turbulent flow mixing and heat transfer, critical heat flux(CHF) and quenching. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was also performed to predict flow and heat transfer in fuel assembly including the spent fuel assembly in dry cask for interim repository. In addition, the research cooperation with university and nuclear fuel company was also carried out to develop a basic thermal-hydraulic technology and the commercialization.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.19-25
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• 1970

A study was conducted on the coolant mixing between water flowing in two adjacent subchannels. Measurements were made of the quantity of mass transferred between a larger rectangular channel and a smaller triangular channel in a 19-rod fuel bundle under the conditions of single phase flow and air-water two-phase flow. The results of the experiments showed that the low mixing rate appears in single phase flow, and high mixing rate was measured in air-water two-phase flow Mixing rate decreases with the increasing of air void fraction during the air-water flow. It seems that the high mixing rate in the air-water flow was caused due to adequate agitation of the chaotic air void.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2873-2878
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• 2007

The mixing vanes attached to the spacer grid of rod bundles are used to improve the heat transfer in heat exchanger devices by controlling the characteristics of the flow structures and turbulence. In this study, velocity patterns induced by two types of mixing vane(split and swirl vane) are measured by the PIV technique to better understand how to effect on the cross and secondary vortex flow patterns in $5{\times}$ rod bundle simulating the fuel assembly of the nuclear reactor. A successful measurement of the lateral velocity patterns was conducted using a specially designed beam sheet generator and experimental loop at KAERI. As the result, we found that for the cross flow between subchannels, the split vane is more effective than the swirl vane, while for the secondary vortex flow in each subchannel, the swirl vane's one is larger and longer than split vane's one.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.166-177
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• 1993

A simplified thermal analysis method to evaluate the maximum temperature of the CANDU 37-element fuel bundle within a fuel basket in a given spent fuel dry storage canister has been presented along with the results of sample analyses performed to examine the parametric effects of the ambient conditions on the maximum fuel temperature within a canister. To solve the multi-dimensional heat transfer problem of the complex geometry of rod bundles within a canister where three modes of heat transfer are superimposed, the CANDU spent fuel bundles stored in the dry storage canister are first replaced by equivalent concentric fuel cylinders. The simplified axi-symmetric two-dimensional multi-mode heat transfer problem of the equivalent fuel cylinders is then analyzed with an existing computer code, HEATING5, using additional input data and heat transfer correlations. A comparison between the predicted temperature profile and the mock-up test results shows that the agreement is quite satisfactory.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.3
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• pp.842-848
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• 2022

Parametric studies of heat transfer and fluid flow are very important research of interest because the design and operation of fluid flow and heat transfer systems are guided by these parametric studies. The safety of the system operation and system optimization can be determined by decreasing or increasing particular fluid flow and heat transfer parameter while keeping other parameters constant. The parameters that can be varied in order to determine safe and optimized system include system pressure, mass flow rate, heat flux and coolant inlet temperature among other parameters. The fluid flow and heat transfer systems can also be enhanced by the presence of or without the presence of particular effects including gravity effect among others. The advanced Generation IV reactors to be deployed for large electricity production, have proven to be more thermally efficient (approximately 45% thermal efficiency) than the current light water reactors with a thermal efficiency of approximately 33 ℃. SCWR is one of the Generation IV reactors intended for electricity generation. High Performance Light Water Reactor (HPLWR) is a SCWR type which is under consideration in this study. One-eighth of a proposed fuel assembly design for HPLWR consisting of 7 fuel/rod bundles with 9 coolant sub-channels was the geometry considered in this study to examine the effects of system pressure and mass flow rate on wall and fluid temperatures. Gravity effect on wall and fluid temperatures were also examined on this one-eighth fuel assembly geometry. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code, STAR-CCM+, was used to obtain the results of the numerical simulations. Based on the parametric analysis carried out, sub-channel 4 performed better in terms of heat transfer because temperatures predicted in sub-channel 9 (corner subchannel) were higher than the ones obtained in sub-channel 4 (central sub-channel). The influence of system mass flow rate, pressure and gravity seem similar in both sub-channels 4 and 9 with temperature distributions higher in sub-channel 9 than in sub-channel 4. In most of the cases considered, temperature distributions (for both fluid and wall) obtained at 25 MPa are higher than those obtained at 23 MPa, temperature distributions obtained at 601.2 kg/h are higher than those obtained at 561.2 kg/h, and temperature distributions obtained without gravity effect are higher than those obtained with gravity effect. The results show that effects of system pressure, mass flowrate and gravity on fluid flow and heat transfer are significant and therefore parametric studies need to be performed to determine safe and optimum operating conditions of fluid flow and heat transfer systems.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.1825-1834
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• 2022

Performing high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (HF-CFD) to predict the flow and heat transfer state of the coolant in the reactor core is expensive, especially in scenarios that require extensive parameter search, such as uncertainty analysis and design optimization. This work investigated the performance of utilizing a multi-fidelity reduced-order model (MF-ROM) in PWR rod bundles simulation. Firstly, basis vectors and basis vector coefficients of high-fidelity and low-fidelity CFD results are extracted separately by the proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) approach. Secondly, a surrogate model is trained to map the relationship between the extracted coefficients from different fidelity results. In the prediction stage, the coefficients of the low-fidelity data under the new operating conditions are extracted by using the obtained POD basis vectors. Then, the trained surrogate model uses the low-fidelity coefficients to regress the high-fidelity coefficients. The predicted high-fidelity data is reconstructed from the product of extracted basis vectors and the regression coefficients. The effectiveness of the MF-ROM is evaluated on a flow and heat transfer problem in PWR fuel rod bundles. Two data-driven algorithms, the Kriging and artificial neural network (ANN), are trained as surrogate models for the MF-ROM to reconstruct the complex flow and heat transfer field downstream of the mixing vanes. The results show good agreements between the data reconstructed with the trained MF-ROM and the high-fidelity CFD simulation result, while the former only requires to taken the computational burden of low-fidelity simulation. The results also show that the performance of the ANN model is slightly better than the Kriging model when using a high number of POD basis vectors for regression. Moreover, the result presented in this paper demonstrates the suitability of the proposed MF-ROM for high-fidelity fixed value initialization to accelerate complex simulation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.10
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• pp.3217-3228
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• 2021

Flow blockage of the fuel assembly in the lead-based fast reactor (LFR) may produce critical local spots, which will result in cladding failure and threaten reactor safety. In this study, the flow blockage characteristics were analyzed with the sub-channel analysis method, and the circumferentially-varied method was employed for considering the non-uniform distribution of circumferential temperature. The developed sub-channel analysis code SACOS-PB was validated by a heat transfer experiment in a blocked 19-rod bundle cooled by lead-bismuth eutectic. The deviations between the predicted coolant temperature and experimental values are within ±5%, including small and large flow blockage scenarios. And the temperature distributions of the fuel rod could be better simulated by the circumferentially-varied method for the small blockage scenario. Based on the validated code, the analysis of blockage characteristics was conducted. It could be seen from the temperature and flow distributions that a large blockage accident is more destructive compared with a small one. The sensitivity analysis shows that the closer the blockage location is to the exit, the more dangerous the accident is. Similarly, a larger blockage length will lead to a more serious case. And a higher exit temperature will be generated resulting from a higher peak coolant temperature of the blocked region. This work could provide a reference for the future design and development of the LFR.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.455-467
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• 2002

RELAP5/MOD3.2 was modified to perform the thermal-hydraulic safety analysis for HANARO transients. Several aspects of RELAP5/MOD3.2 were modified or replaced by new features to properly simulate the unique HANARO characteristics such as the finned fuel element, the cooling mechanisms by both plate type heat exchanger and the natural circulation. Especially, the heat transfer packages were modified to be more appropriate for the safety analysis and the heat transfer models were developed for the plate type heat exchanger as well as natural circulation through the pool water. This modified version of RELAP5/MOD3.2 is renamed as RELAP5/HANARO. The thermal-hydraulic simulations of the single fuel pin test and plate type heat exchanger were peformed to assess the realistic predicting capabilities of RELAP5/HANARO and compared with experimental results and manufacturer＇s data in this paper. In addition, the natural circulation experiment using the scaled bundle was simulated to validate the capability of RELAP5/HANARO. The simulation results show almost similar trend with experimental data. Therefore, it is proved that RELAP5/HANARO has a confidence to use for the safety analyses of HANARO.