• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2002.08a
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• pp.51-54
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• 2002

When a cold HPSI (High Pressure Safety Injection) fluid associated with an design basis accident, such as LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accident), enters the cold legs of a stagnated primary coolant loop, thermal stratification phenomena will arise due to incomplete mixing. If the stratified flow enters a reactor pressure vessel downcomer, severe thermal stresses are created in a radiation embrittled vessel wall by local overcooling. Previous thermal-mixing analyses have assumed that the thermal stratification phenomena generated in stagnated loop of a partially stagnated coolant loop are neutralized in the vessel downcomer by strong flow from unstagnated loop. On the basis of these reasons, this paper presents the thermal-mixing analysis results in order to identify the fact that the cold plume generated in the vessel downcomer due to the thermal stratification phenomena of the stagnated loop is affected by the strong flow of the unstagnated loop.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.9
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• pp.1380-1387
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• 2003

When a cold HPSI (High pressure Safety Injection) fluid associated with an overcooling transient, such as SGTR (Steam Generator Tube Rupture), MSLB (Main Steam Line Break) etc., enters the cold legs of a stagnated primary coolant loop, thermal stratification phenomena will arise due to incomplete mixing. If the stratified flow enters the downcomer of the reactor pressure vessel, severe thermal stresses are created in a radiation embrittled vessel wall by local overcooling. As general thermal-hydraulic system analysis codes cannot properly predict the thermal stratification phenomena, RG 1.154 requires that a detailed thermal-mixing analysis of PTS (pressurized Thermal Shock) evaluation be performed. Also. previous PTS studies have assumed that the thermal stratification phenomena generated in the stagnated loop side of a partially stagnated primary coolant loop are neutralized in the vessel downcomer by the strong flow from the unstagnated loop. On the basis of these reasons, this paper focuses on the development of a 3-dimensional thermal-mixing analysis model using PHOENICS code which can be applied to both partial and total loop stagnated cases. In addition, this paper verifies the fact that, for partial loop stagnated cases, the cold plume generated in the vessel downcomer due to the thermal stratification phenomena of the stagnated loop is almost neutralized by the strong flow of the unstagnated loop but is not fully eliminated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.99-106
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• 2013

Thermal fatigue is a significant long-term degradation mechanism in nuclear power plants. In particular, as operating plants become older and life time extension activities are initiated, operators and regulators need screening criteria to exclude risks of thermal fatigue and methods to determine significant fatigue relevance. In general, the common thermal fatigue issues are well understood and controlled by plant instrumentation at fatigue susceptible locations. However, incidents indicate that certain piping system Tee connections are susceptible to turbulent temperature mixing effects that cannot be adequately monitored by common thermocouple instrumentations. Therefore, in this study thermal fatigue evaluation of piping system Tee-connections is performed using the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis. From the thermal hydraulic analysis, the temperature distributions are determined and their results are applied to the structural model of the piping system to determine the thermal stress. Using the rain-flow method the fatigue analysis is performed to generate fatigue usage factors. The procedure for improved load thermal fatigue assessment using FSI analysis shown in this study will supply valuable information for establishing a methodology on thermal fatigue.

• 유체기계공업학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.08a
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• pp.513-514
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• 2006

A CFD analysis for a thermal mixing experiment during steam jet discharge was performed to develop the analysis methodology for the thermal mixing between steam and subcooled water and to find the optimized numerical method. In the CFD analysis, the steam condensation phenomena by a direct contact was modelled by the so-called condensation region model. The comparison of the CFD results with the test data showed a good agreement as a whole, but a small temperature difference was locally found at some locations. However, the commercial CFD code of CFX4.4 together with the condensation region model can simulate the thermal mixing behaviour reasonably well when a sufficient number of mesh distribution and a proper numerical method are adopted

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.23-28
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• 2003

When a cold HPSI (High Pressure Safety Injection) fluid associated with a design basis accident, such as LOCA (Loss of Coolant Accident), enters the cold legs of a stagnated primary coolant loop, thermal stratification phenomena may arise due to incomplete mixing. If the stratified flow enters a reactor pressure vessel downcomer, severe thermal stresses are created in a radiation embrittled vessel wall by local overcooling. Previous thermal-mixing analyses have assumed that the thermal stratification phenomena generated in stagnated loop of a partially stagnated collant loop are neutralized in the vessel downcomer by strong flow from unstagnated loop. On the basis of these reasons, this paper presents the thermal-mixing analysis results in order to identify the fact that the cold plume generated in the vessel downcomer due to the thermal stratification phenomena of the stagnated loop is affected by the strong flow of the unstagnated loop.

• 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.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.84-91
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• 2015

SMART adopts, very unique facility, an FMHA to enhance the thermal and flow mixing capability in abnormal conditions of some steam generators or reactor coolant pumps. The FMHA is important for enhancing thermal mixing of the core inlet flow during a transient and even during accidents, and thus it is essential that the thermal mixing characteristics of flow of the FMHA be understood. Investigations for the mixing characteristics of the FMHA had been performed by using experimental and CFD methods in KAERI. In this study, the temperature distribution at the core inlet region is investigated for several abnormal conditions of steam generators using the commercial code, FLUENT 12. Simulations are carried out with two kinds of FMHA shapes, different mesh resolutions, turbulence models, and steam generator conditions. The CFD results show that the temperature deviation at the core inlet reduces greatly for all turbulence models and steam generator conditions tested here, and the effect of mesh refinement on the temperature distribution at the core inlet is negligible. Even though the uniformity of FMHA outlet hole flow increases the thermal mixing, the temperature deviation at the core inlet is within an acceptable range. We numerically confirmed that the FMHA applied in SMART has an excellent mixing capability and all simulation cases tested here satisfies the design requirement for FMHA thermal mixing capability.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.41 no.7
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• pp.953-968
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• 2009

It is important to accurately predict the temperature and density distributions in large stratified enclosures both for design optimization and accident analysis. Current reactor system analysis codes only provide lumped-volume based models that can give very approximate results. Previous scaling analysis has shown that stratified mixing processes in large stably stratified enclosures can be described using one-dimensional differential equations, with the vertical transport by jets modeled using integral techniques. This allows very large reductions in computational effort compared to three-dimensional CFD simulation. The BMIX++ (Berkeley mechanistic MIXing code in C++) code was developed to implement such ideas. This paper summarizes major models for the BMIX++ code, presents the two-plume mixing experiment simulation as one validation example, and describes the codes' application to the liquid salt buffer pool system in the AHTR (Advanced High Temperature Reactor) design. Three design options have been simulated and they exhibit significantly different stratification patterns. One of design options shows the mildest thermal stratification and is identified as the best design option. This application shows that the BMIX++ code has capability to provide the reactor designers with insights to understand complex mixing behavior with mechanistic methods. Similar analysis is possible for liquid-metal cooled reactors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.11a
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• pp.283-288
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• 1996

Direct safety injection into the reactor vessel downcomer annulus(DVI) is a fundamental feature of the KNGR(Korean Next Generation Reactor) four-train safety injection system. The numerical analysis of thermal mixing of ECC(Emergency Core Cooling) water through DVI with the water in the RVDC(Reactor Vessel Downcomer) annulus has been performed, in order to study the impact of nozzle location on the pressurized thermal shock and safety analysis. The results of this study show that the thermal mixing due to the natural circulation induced by the limiting accident conditions is sufficient to prevent temperature in the RVDC from dropping to the level of concern for PTS. When the DVI nozzle is located right above the cold leg, the temperature distribution at the outlet of flow field is most uniform. The tool used for numerical analysis is CFDS-FLOW3D.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.11 no.2 s.33
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• pp.8-18
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• 2006

A CFD benchmark calculation for a steam blowdown test was performed for 30 seconds to develop the methodology of numerical analysis for the thermal mixing between steam and subcooled water. In the CFD analysis, the grid model simulating the sparger and the IRWST pool were developed by the axisymmetric condition and then the steam condensation phenomena by a direct contact was modelled by the so-called condensation region model. Thermal mixing phenomenon in the subcooled water tank was treated as an incompressible flow, a free surface flow between the air and the water, a turbulent flow, and a buoyancy flow. The comparison of the CFD results with the test data showed a good agreement as a whole, but a small temperature difference was locally found at some locations. The commercial CFD code of CFX4.4 together with the condensation region model can simulate the thermal mixing behavior reasonably well when a sufficient number of mesh distribution and a proper numerical method are adopted.