• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.687-688
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• 2005

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.9
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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.

• 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.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.9-14
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• 2007

The purpose of present work is to analyze the convective heat transfer downstream of mixing vane in subchannel of nuclear reactor with three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations. SST model is selected as a turbulence closure by comparing the performances of two different turbulent closures. Three different shapes of mixing vane are tested. And, thermal-hydraulic performances of these vanes are discussed. The results show that twist of the vane improves the heat transfer performance far downstream of the vane.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.29 no.10
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• pp.538-550
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• 2017

In a PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor), the appropriate heat removal from the surface of fuel rod bundle is important for ensuring thermal margins and safety. Although many CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) software have been used to predict complex flows inside fuel assemblies with mixing vanes, there is no domestic regulatory guideline for the comprehensive evaluation of CFD software. Therefore, from the nuclear regulatory perspective, it is necessary to perform the systematic assessment and prepare the domestic regulatory guideline for checking whether valid CFD software is used for nuclear safety problems. In this study, to provide systematic evaluation and guidance on the applicability of CFD software to the domestic nuclear safety area, the results of the sensitivity analysis for the effect of the discretization scheme accuracy for the convection terms and turbulence models, which are main factors that contribute to the uncertainty in the calculation of the nuclear safety problems, on the prediction performance for the turbulent flow distribution inside the fuel assembly with split-type mixing vanes were explained.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.1125-1134
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• 2024

This paper presents a validation study of the subchannel analysis code SLTHEN used for the core thermal-hydraulic design of the Prototype Gen-IV sodium-cooled fast reactor (PGSFR). To assess the performance of the ENERGY model of SLTHEN, four liquid metal heating experiments conducted by ORNL, WARD, and KIT with hexagonal assemblies of wire-wrapped rod bundles were analyzed. These experiments were performed with 19-and 61-pin bundles and varying power distributions of axial and radial peaking factors up to 1.4 and 3.0, respectively. The coolant subchannel temperatures measured at different axial locations were compared with the SLTHEN predictions with the Novendstern, Chiu-Rohsenow-Todreas (CRT), and Cheng-Todreas (CT) correlations for flow split and mixing in wire-wrapped pin bundles. The results showed that the SLTHEN predicts the measured subchannel temperatures reasonably well with root-mean-square errors of ~10 % and maximum errors of ~20 %. It was also observed that the CRT and CT correlations consistently outperform the Novendstern correlation.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.12 no.11
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• pp.1004-1011
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• 2000

Experimental and computational studies were carried out to confirm the turbulent enhancement of the cooling system of nuclear reactor by large scale vortex generation in nuclear fuel bundle. The large scale vortex motions were generated by rearranging the inclination angles of mixing vanes to the coordinate directions. Axial development of mean and turbulent velocities in the subchannels were measured by the 2-color LDV system. Eddy diffusivity heat flux model and $k-varepsilon$ model were employed to analyze the turbulent heat and fluid flows in the subchannel. The turbulence generated by split mixing vanes has small length scales so that they maintain only about $10 D_H$ after the spacer grid. On the other hand, the turbulences generated by the large scale vortex continue more and remain up to $25 D_H$after the spacer gird.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1997.05a
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• pp.316-321
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• 1997

The mixing vane effect on the Critical Heat Flux (CHF) is discussed with focus on the vortex now effect. In the subchannel approach, this effect is not quantified by the calculation model, but directly taken into account by the CHF correlation itself through data analysis. The vortex now effect is identified the two Westinghouse correlations, and then the CHF margin issue given rise to by the Vantage-5H design change is evaluated and discussed. It is noted that deficiency about CHF dependency on the vortex flow effect could induce an error in the Departure from Nucleate Boiling Ratio (DNBR) sensitivity Calculation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.4
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• pp.1119-1126
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• 2021

Spacer grid with mixing vane had been widely used in nuclear reactor core. One of the main feather of spacer grid with mixing vane was that strong swirl flow was formed after the spacer grid. The swirl flow not only changed the bubble generation in the near wall field, but also affected the bubble behaviors in the center region of the subchannel. The interaction between bubble and the swirl flow was one of the basic phenomena for the two phase flow modeling in fuel assembly. To obatin better understanding on the bubble behaviors in swirl flow, full three dimension numerical simulations were conducted in the present paper. The swirl flow was assumed in the cylindral calculation domain. The bubble interface was captured by Volume Of Fluid (VOF) method. The properties of saturated water and steam at different pressure were applied in the simulation. The bubble trajectory, motion, shape and force were obtained based on the bubble parameters captured by VOF. The simulation cases in the present study included single bubble with different size, at different angular velocity conditions and at different pressure conditions. The results indicated that bubble migrated to the center in swirl flow with spiral motion type. The lateral migration was mainly related to shear stress magnitude and bubble size. The bubble moved toward the center with high velocity when the swirl magnitude was high. The largest bubble had the highest lateral migration velocity in the present study range. The effect of pressure was small when bubble size was the same. The prelimenery simulation result would be beneficial for better understanding complex two phase flow phenomena in fuel assembly with spacer grid.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.56-71
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• 1996

The local hydrulic characteristics in subchannels of 5$\times$5 nuclear fuel bundles with spacer grids were measured at upstream and downstream of the spacer grid for the investigation of the spacer grid effects on turbulent flow structure by using an LDV(Laser Doppler Velocimeter). The measured parameters are axial velocity and turbulent intensity, skewness factor, and flatness factor. Pressure drops were also measured to evaluate the loss coefficient for the spacer grid and the friction factor for rod bundles. From these data, it was found that the turbulent mixing and forced mixing occur up to $x/D^h=10$ and 20 from the spacer grid, respectively. The turbulence decay behind spacer grid behaves in the similar decay rate as turbulent flow through mesh grids or screens. Mixing factors useful in subchannel analysis code were correlated from the data and show the highest value near spacer grid and then have a stable values.