• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06e
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• pp.482-487
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• 2001

A CFD study was conducted to evaluate the nuclear fuel assembly coolant mixing that is promoted by the flow-mixing vanes on the grid spacer. Four mixing vanes (split vane, swirl vane, twisted vane, hybrid vane) were chosen in this study. A single subchannel of one grid span is modeled using the flow symmetry. The three mixing vanes other than swirl vane generate a large crossflow between the subchannels and a skewed elliptic swirling flow in the subchannel near the grid spacer. The swirl vane induces a circular swirling flow in the subchannel and a negligible crossflow. The split vane and the twisted vane were predicted to result in relatively larger pressure drop across the grid spacer. Since the average turbulent kinetic energy in the subchannel rapidly decreases to a fully developed level downstream of the spacer, turbulent mixing caused by the mixing vanes appears to be not as effective as swirling flow mixing in the subchannel. In summary, the CFD analysis represented the overall characteristics of coolant mixing well in a nuclear fuel assembly with the flow mixing vanes on the grid spacer. The CFD study is therefore quite useful for the development of an advanced flow-mixing vane.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.79-87
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• 2002

The present work analyzed the effect of mixing vane shape on the flow structure and heat transfer downstream of mixing vane in a subchannel of fuel assembly, by obtaining velocity and pressure fields, turbulent intensity, flow-mixing factors, heat transfer coefficient and friction factor using three-dimensional RANS analysis. NJl5, NJ25, NJ35, NJ45, which were designed by the authors, were tested to evaluate the performances in enhancing the heat transfer. Standard $\kappa-\epsilon$ model is used as a turbulence closure model, and, periodic and symmetry conditions are set as boundary conditions. The flow blockage ratio is kept constant, but the twist angle of mixing vane is changed. The results with three turbulence models( $\kappa-\epsilon$, $\kappa-\omega$, RSM) were compared with experimental data.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.10
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• pp.3775-3786
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• 2023

Mixing Vane Grid (MVG) is one of the most important structures in fuel assembly due to its high performance in mixing the coolant and ultimately increasing Critical Heat Flux (CHF), which avoids the temperature rising suddenly of fuel rods. To evaluate the mixing performance of the MVG, a Total Diffusion Coefficient (TDC) mixing coefficient is defined in the subchannel analysis code. Conventionally, the TDC of the spacer grid is obtained from the combination of experiments and subchannel analysis. However, the processing of obtaining and determine a reasonable TDC is much challenging, it is affected by boundary conditions and MVG geometries. In is difficult to perform all the large and costing rod bundle tests. In this paper, the CFD method was applied in TDC analysis. A typical 5 × 5 MVG was simulated and validated to estimate the mixing performance of the MVG. The subchannel code was used to calculate the TDC. Firstly, the CFD method was validated from the aspect of pressure drop and lateral temperature distribution in the subchannels. Then the effect of boundary conditions including the inlet temperature, inlet velocities, heat flux ratio between hot and cold rods and the arrangement of hot and cold rods on MVG mixing and TDC were studied. The geometric effects on mixing are also carried out in this paper. The effect of vane pattern on mixing was investigated to determine which one is the best to represent the grid's mixing performance.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.1819-1824
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• 2004

The common method to improve heat transfer in Nuclear fuel rod bundle is install a mixing vane in space grid. The previous split mixing vane is guides cooling water to swirl flow in sub-channel of fuel assembly. But, this swirl flow decade rapidly after mixing vane and the effect of enhancing the heat transfer vanish behind this short region. The large scale secondary vortex flow was generated by rearranging the inclined angle direction of mixing vanes to the coordinated directions. This LSVF mixing vanes generate the most strong secondary flow vortices which maintain about 35 $D_H$ after the spacer grid and the streamwise vorticity in subchannel with LSVF mixing vane sustain two times more than that in subchannel with split mixing vane. The turbulent kinetic energy and the Reynolds stresses generated by the mixing vanes have nearly same scales but maintain twice more than previous type.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.327-338
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• 2001

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was performed to propose the optimum design of flow mixing vane on the space grid in a PWR fuel assembly. The flow mixing vanes considered in this study for optimum design are swirl-vane and twisted-vane. A single subchannel of one grid span was modeled using flow symmetry to minimize the computational effort. The CFD predictions are in good agreement with the experimental results for the split- vane, which shows the applicability of the CFD method. The mixing effect by swirling flow and crossflow, and the pressure drop were estimated and compared for the various vane angles. The optimum vane angle is proposed to be 40。 and 35。 from the direction of axial flow for the swirl-vane and the twisted-vane, respectively.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.311-318
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• 2003

The present work evaluates the effects of mixing vane shape on the flow structure and heat transfer downstream of mixing vane in a subchannel of fuel assembly. by obtaining velocity and pressure fields. turbulent intensity. flow-mixing factors. heat transfer coefficient and friction factor using three-dimensional RANS analysis. Four different shapes of mixing vane. which were designed by the authors were tested to evaluate the performances in enhancing the heat transfer. Standard k-$\varepsilon$ model is used as a turbulence closure model. and. periodic and symmetry conditions are set as boundary conditions. The flow blockage ratio is kept constant. but the twist angle of mixing vane is changed. The results with three turbulence models were compared with experimental data.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.89-94
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• 2014

The 4th generation SFR is being designed with a milestone of construction by 2028. It is important to understand the subchannel flow characteristics in fuel assembly through the experimental investigations and to estimate the calculation uncertainties for insuring the confidence of the design code calculation results. The friction coefficient and the mixing coefficient are selected as primary parameters. The two parameters are related to the flow distribution and diffusion. To identify the flow distribution, an iso-kinetic method was developed based on the previous study. For the mixing parameters, a wire mesh system and a laser induced fluorescence methods were developed in parallel. The measuring systems were adopted on 37 rod bundle test geometry, which was developed based on the Euler number scaling. A scaling method for a design of experimental facility and the experimental identification techniques for the flow distribution and mixing parameters were developed based on the measurement requirement.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.283-297
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• 2001

The CHF in PWR rod bundles is usually predicted by the local flow correlation approach based on subchannel analysis while difficulty exists due to the existence of spacer grids especially with mixing vanes. In order to evaluate the effect of spacer grids on CHF, the experimental rod bundle data with various types of spacer grids were analyzed using the subchannel code, COBRA-IV-i. For the Plain grid data, a CHF correlation was described as a function of local flow conditions and heated length, and then the residuals of the CHF in mixing vaned grids predicted by the correlation were examined in various kinds of grids. In order to compensate for the residual, three parameters, distances between grids and from the last grids to the CHF site, and equivalent hydraulic diameter were introduced into a grid parameter function representing the remaining effect of spacer grids predicted most of the CHF data points in plaing grids within $\pm$20 percent error band. Good agreement with the CHF data was also shown when the grid parameter function for mixing vaned grids of a specific design was used to compensate for the residuals of the CHF data predicted by the correlation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.295-306
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• 2009

The subchannel grade void distributions in the NUPEC (Nuclear Power Engineering Corporation) BFBT (BWR Full-Size Fine-Mesh Bundle Tests) facility were evaluated with the subchannel analysis code MATRA and the system code MARS. Fifteen test series from five different test bundles were selected for an analysis of the steady-state subchannel void distributions. Two transient cases, a turbine trip without a bypass as a typical power transient and a re-circulation pump trip as a flow transient, were also chosen for this analysis. It was found that the steady-state void distributions calculated by both the MATRA and MARS codes coincided well with the measured data in the range of thermodynamic qualities from 5% to 25%. The results of the transient calculations were also similar and were highly feasible. However, the computational aspects of the two codes were clearly different.

• 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.