• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제56권2호
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• pp.410-418
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• 2024

Study of flow behavior within rod bundles has been an active topic. Surface modification technologies are important parts of the design of the fourth generation reactor, which can increase the strength of the secondary flow within the rod bundle lattices. Quasi-periodic large-scale vortex structure (QLVS) is introduced by arranging micro ribs on the surface of rod bundles, which enhanced the scale of the secondary flow between the rod bundle lattices. Using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and water experiments, the flow field distribution and drag coefficient of the rod-bundle lattices are studied. The secondary flow between the micro-ribbed rod-bundle lattice is significantly enhanced compared to the standard rod-bundle lattice. The numerical simulation results agree well with the experimental results.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제52권9호
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• pp.1945-1954
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• 2020

Subchannel code is one of the effective simulation tools for thermal-hydraulic analysis in nuclear reactor core. In order to reduce the computational cost and improve the calculation efficiency, empirical correlation of turbulent mixing coefficient is employed to calculate the lateral mixing velocity between adjacent subchannels. However, correlations utilized currently are often fitted from data achieved in central channel of fuel assembly, which would simply neglect the wall effects. In this paper, the CFD approach based on spectral element method is employed to predict turbulent mixing phenomena through gaps in 3 × 3 bare tight lattice rod bundle and investigate the flow pulsation through gaps in different positions. Re = 5000,10000,20500 and P/D = 1.03 and 1.06 have been covered in the simulation cases. With a well verified mesh, lateral velocities at gap center between corner channel and wall channel (W-Co), wall channel and wall channel (W-W), wall channel and center channel (W-C) as well as center channel and center channel (C-C) are collected and compared with each other. The obvious turbulent mixing distributions are presented in the different channels of rod bundle. The peak frequency values at W-Co channel could have about 40%-50% reduction comparing with the C-C channel value and the turbulent mixing coefficient β could decrease around 25%. corrections for β should be performed in subchannel code at wall channel and corner channel for a reasonable prediction result. A preliminary analysis on fluctuation at channel gap has also performed. Eddy cascade should be considered carefully in detailed analysis for fluctuating in rod bundle.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제31권3호
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• pp.314-327
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• 1999

A subchannel analysis code MATRA applicable to PWRs and ALWRs has been developed to be run on an IBM PC or HP WS based on the existing CDC CYBER mainframe version of COBRA-Rf-1. This MATRA code is a thermal-hydraulic analysis code based on the subchannel approach for calculating the enthalpy and How distribution in fuel assemblies and reactor cores for both steady-state and transient conditions. HATRA has been provided with an improved structure, various functions, and models to give more convenient user environment and to enhance the code accuracy. Among them, the pressure drop model has been improved to be applied to non-square-lattice rod arrays, and the models for the lateral transport between adjacent subchannels have been improved to enhance the accuracy in predicting two-phase flow phenomena. The predictions of MATRA were compared with the experimental data on the flow and enthalpy distribution in some sample rod-bundle cases to evaluate the performance of MATRA. All the results revealed that the predictions of MATRA were better than those of COBRA-IV-I.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제23권2호
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• pp.165-173
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• 1991

가압경수로의 사용후핵연료를 CANDU 원자로에 재순환시키는, 이른바, 탄뎀 핵연료주기가 본 연구에서 다루어졌다. 이러한 방식으로 가압경수로의 사용후핵연료를 활용하는 것은 우라늄자원의 이용을 개선시킬뿐만 아니라 사용후핵연료 저장능력의 부족도 다소 해결할 수 있을 것이다. 핵연료를 재순환 시키는데 있어서는 CANDU 원자로의 수정을 최소화하는 방향으로 연구가 진행되었으며 본 연구에서는 9종의 핵연료가 고려되었다. 탄뎀 핵연료는 크게 핵연료재가공과 노심재구성의 두 분야로 나뉘어지는데, 핵연료 재가공의 경우, 가압경수로의 사용후핵연료는 처리되고 현재의 37 봉형 격자구조인 핵연료 다발에 맞도록 다시 성형가공되며 노심재구성의 경우, 가압경수로 사용후핵연료는 단지 격자 구조를 해체하고 CANDU의 격자길이에 맞춰 재구성만 된다. 각 탄뎀 핵연료 옵션에 대하여, 허용연소도와 출력분포를 계산하기 위해 노심연소계산이 수행되었다. 또한 경제성에 대한 접근으로 각 핵연료 옵션에 대한 핵주기비가 계산되었다. 그 결과 본 연구에서 다루어진 대부분의 탄뎀 핵연료 옵션이 경제성이 있었을 뿐만 아니라 기술적인 타당성이 있었다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제37권1호
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• pp.79-90
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• 2005

In this paper are reviewed the current status of nuclear fuel management and reactor operational aid tools. In addition, we indicate deficiencies in current capabilities and what future research is judged warranted. For the nuclear fuel management review the focus is on light water reactors and the utilization of stochastic optimization methods applied to the lattice, fuel bundle, core loading pattern, and for BWRs the control rod pattern/core flow design decision making problems. Significant progress in addressing separately each of these design problems on a single cycle basis is noted; however, the outstanding challenge of addressing the integrated design problem over multiple cycles under conditions of uncertainty remains to be addressed. For the reactor operational aid tools review the focus is on core simulators, used to both process core instrumentation signals and as an operator aid to predict future core behaviors under various operational strategies. After briefly reviewing the current status of capabilities, a more in depth review of adaptive core simulation capabilities, where core simulator input data are adjusted within their known uncertainties to improved agreement between prediction and measurement, is presented. This is done in support of the belief that further development of adaptive core simulation capabilities is required to further significantly advance the utility of core simulators in support of reactor operational aid tools.