• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.5-10
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• 2010

5MW, open pool type research reactor, is commonly used to education and experimental purpose. It is necessary to prepare a standardization of system designs for considering a demand. HANARO has prepared the standardization of 5MW research reactor system designs based on the design, installation, commissioning and operating experiences of HANARO. For maintaining an open pool type reactor safety, a primary cooling system (after below, PCS) should remove the heat generated by the reactor under a reactor normal operation condition and a reactor shutdown condition. For removing the heat generated by the reactor, the PCS should maintain a required coolant flow rate. For a verification of the required flow rate, a flow network analysis of the PCS was carried under a normal operating condition. Based on the flow network analysis result, this paper describes the PCS flow characteristics of a 5MW open pool type research reactor. Through the result, it was confirmed that the PCS met design requirements including design flow rate without cavitation.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.03a
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• pp.214-219
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• 2004

The HANARO, a multi-purpose research reactor of 30 MWth, open-tank-in-pool type, has been under normal operation since its initial criticality in February, 1995. The HANARO is composed of inlet plenum, grid plate, core channel with flow tubes and chimney. The reactor core channel is located at about twelve m (12 m) depth of the reactor pool and cold by the upward flow that the coolant enters the lower inlet of the plenum, rises up through the grid plate and the core channel and exit through the outlet of chimney. A guide tube is extended from the reactor core to the top of the reactor chimney for easily un/loading a target under the reactor normal operation. But active coolant through the core can be Quickly raised up to the top of the chimney through the guide tube by jet flow. This paper is described an analytical analysis to study the flow behavior through the guide tube under reactor normal operation and unloading the target. As results, it was conformed through the analysis results that the flow rate, about fourteen kilogram per second (14 kg/s) suppressed the guide tube jet and met the design cooling flow rate in a circular flow tube, and that the fission moly target cooling flow rate met the minimum flow rate to cool the target.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.1-6
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• 2005

The HANARO, a multi-purpose research reactor of 30 MWth, open-tank-in-pool type, has been under normal operation since its initial criticality in February, 1995. The HANARO is composed af inlet plenum, grid plate, core channel with flow tubes and chimney. The reactor core channel is located at about twelve meters (12 m) depth of the reactor pool and cooled by the upward flow that the coolant enters the lower inlet of the plenum, rises up through the grid plate and the core channel and comes out from the outlet of chimney. A fission moly guide tube is extended from the reactor core to the top of the reactor chimney for easily loading a fission moly target under the reactor normal operation. But active coolant through the core can be quickly raised up to the top of the chimney through the guide tube by jet flow. This paper describes an analytical analysis that is the study of the flow behavior through the guide tube under reactor normal operation and unloading the target. As results, it was conformed through the analysis results that the flow rate, reduced to about fourteen kilogram per second (14 kg/s) from the original flow rate of sixteen point three kilogram per second (16.3 kg/s) did not show the guide tube jet.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.2141-2145
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• 2004

As part of study on thermal hydraulic behavior in the reactor cavity under external vessel cooling in the APR (Advanced Power Reactor) 1400, one dimensional two phase flow of steady state in the reactor cavity have been analyzed to investigate a coolant circulation mass flow rate in the annulus region between the reactor vessel and the insulation material using the RELAP5/MOD3 computer code. The RELAP5/MOD3 results have shown that a two phase natural circulation flow of 300 - 600 kg/s is generated in the annulus region between the reactor vessel and the insulation material when the external vessel cooling has been applied in the APR 1400. An increase in the heat flux of the inner vessel leads to an increase of the coolant mass flow rate. An increase in the coolant outlet area leads to an increase in the coolant circulation mass flow rate, but the coolant inlet area does not effective on the coolant circulation mass flow rate. The change of the lower coolant outlet to a lower position affects the coolant circulation mass flow rate, but the variation trend is not consistent.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.7
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• pp.2458-2473
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• 2024

The turbulent flow in reactor pressure vessel (RPV) of pressurized water reactor (PWR) is important for the flow rate distribution at core inlet. Thus, it is vital to study the turbulent flow phenomena in RPV. However, the complicated fluid channel consisted of inner structures of RPV will block or refract the laser sheet of particle image velocimetry (PIV). In this work, the matched index of refraction (MIR) of sodium iodide (NaI) solution and acrylic was applied to support optical path for flow field measurements by PIV in the 1/10th scaled-down RPV model. The experimental results show detailed velocity field at different locations inside the scaled-down RPV model. Some interesting phenomena are obtained, including the non-negligible counterflow at the corner of nozzle edge, the high downward flowing stream in downcomer, large vortices above vortex suppression plate in lower plenum. And the intensity of counterflow and the strength of vortices increase as inlet flow rate increasing. Finally, the case of asymmetry flow was also studied. The turbulent flow has different pattern compared with the case of symmetrical inlet flow rate, which may affect the uniformity of flow distribution at the core inlet.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.1
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• pp.93-102
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• 2021

The analysis of the fluid flow characteristics in reactor pressure vessel is an important part of the hydraulic design of nuclear power plant, which is related to the structure design of reactor internals, the flow distribution at core inlet and the safety of nuclear power plant. The flow distribution and mixing characteristics in the pressurized reactor vessel for the 1000MWe advanced pressurized water reactor is analyzed by using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method in this study. The geometry model of the full-scaled reactor vessel is built, which includes the cold and hot legs, downcomer, lower plenum, core, upper plenum, top plenum, and is verified with some parameters in DCD. Under normal condition, it is found that the flow skirt, core plate holes and outlet pipe cause pressure loss. The maximum and minimum flow coefficient is 1.028 and 0.961 respectively, and the standard deviation is 0.019. Compared with other reactor type, it shows relatively uniform of the flow distribution at the core inlet. The coolant mixing coefficient is investigated with adding additional variables, showing that mass transfer of coolant occurs near the interface. The coolant mainly distributes in the 90° area of the corresponding core inlet, and mixes at the interface with the coolant from the adjacent cold leg. 0.1% of corresponding coolant is still distributed at the inlet of the outer-ring components, indicating wide range of mixing coefficient distribution.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.90-96
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• 2010

The recirculating electrochemical flow reactor developed at UCLA has been employed to fabricate nanostructured GMR multilayers. For comparison, Ni/Cu multilayers have been electrodeposited from a single bath, from dual baths and from the recirculating electrochemical flow reactor. For a magnetic field of 1.5 kOe, higher GMR (Max. -5%) Ni/Cu multilayers with low electrical resistivity (< $10\;{\mu}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$) were achieved by the electrochemical flow reactor system than by the dual bath (Max. GMR = -4.2% and < $20\;{\mu}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$) or the single bath (Max. GMR = -2.1% and < $90\;{\mu}{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$) techniques. Higher GMR effects have been obtained by producing smoother, contiguous layers at lower current densities and by the elimination of oxide film formation by conducting deposition under an inert gas environment. Our preliminary GMR measurements of Ni/Cu multilayers from the electrochemical flow reactor obtained at low magnetic field of 0.15 T, which may approach or exceed the highest reported results (-7% GMR) at magnetic fields > 5 kOe.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.1181-1190
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• 2023

Hydraulic performance and flow resistance tests were performed to confirm the main parameters of the hydraulic instrumentation that can affect the pump performance of the reactor coolant pump. The flow resistance test offers important experimental data, which are necessary to predict the behavior of the primary coolant when the circulation of the reactor coolant pump is stopped. Moreover, the shape of the hydraulic section of the pump, which was considered in the test, was prepared to compare the mixed-flow- and axial-flow-type models, the difference in the number of blades of the impeller and diffuser, the difference in the shape of the impeller blade and its thickness, and the effect of coating at the suction bell. Additionally, five models of the hydraulic part were manufactured for the experiments. In this study, the differences in performance owing to the design factors were confirmed through the experimental results.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3086-3091
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• 2007

When a molten corium is relocated in a lower head of a reactor vessel, the ERVC (External Reactor Vessel Cooling) system is actuated as coolant is supplied into a reactor cavity to remove a decay heat from the molten corium during a severe accident. To achieve this severe accident mitigation strategy, the two-phase natural circulation flow in the annular gap between the external reactor vessel and the insulation should be formed sufficiently by designing the coolant inlet/outlet area and gap size adequately on the insulation device. For this reason, one-dimensional natural circulation flow tests were conducted to estimate the natural circulation flow under the ERVC condition of APR1400. The experimental facility is one-dimensional and scaled-down as the half height and 1/238 rectangular channel area of the APR1400 reactor vessel. As the water inlet area increased, the natural circulation mass flow rate asymptotically increased, that is, it converged at a specific value. And the circulation mass flow rate also increased as the outlet area, injected air flow rate, and outlet height increased. But the circulation mass flow rate was not changed along with the external water level variation if the water level was higher than the outlet height.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.1416-1428
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• 2021

Pebble flow characteristics can be significantly affected by the configuration of pebble bed, especially for HTGR pebble beds. How to achieve a desired uniform flow pattern without stagnation is the top priority for reactor design. Pebbles flows inside some specially designed pebble bed with arc-shaped contraction configurations at the bottom, including both concave-inward and convex-outward shapes are explored based on discrete element method. Flow characteristics including pebble retention, residence-time frequency density, flow uniformity as well as axial velocity are investigated. The results show that the traditionally designed pebble bed with cone-shape bottom is not the most preferred structure with respect to flow pattern for reactor design. By improving the contraction configuration, the flow performance can be significantly enhanced. The flow in the convex-shape configuration featured by uniformity, consistency and less stagnation, is much more desirable for pebble bed design. In contrast, when the shape is from convex-forward to concave-inward, the flow shows more nonuniformity and stagnation in the corner although the average cross-section axial velocity is the largest due to the dominant middle pebbles.