• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2008년도 춘계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.538-541
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• 2008

This study considers the feasibility of the concentration control of the feul and air by oscillating flow in the channel of Fuel Cells. Fuel Cell Stack performance is largely influenced by the fuel and air concentration. If the fuel and air concentration is lower than stoichiometry 1.25 of the fuel and 2.5 of the air, its performance deteriorates seriously because of the fuel and air starvation. In this respect the optimization of the fuel and air concentration is crucially important to maximize fuel cell stack performance. In this work, the effects of oscillating actuation are studied to control the concentration. Two important nondimensional parameters are introduced, each of which represents either the oscillating frequency or the oscillating amplitude. It is shown how these factors affect the stack performance and the efficiency of the fuel cell stack stack.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제26권9호
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• pp.1201-1208
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• 2002

A numerical flow-field analysis is performed to investigate flow configurations in the anode, cathode and cooling channels on the bipolar plates of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Continuous open-faced flow channels are formed on the bipolar plate surface to supply hydrogen, air and water. In this analysis, two types of channel pattern are considered: serpentine and spiral. The averaged pressure distribution and velocity profiles of the hydrogen, air and water channels are calculated by two-dimensional flow-field analysis. The equations for the conservation of mass and momentum in the two-dimensional fluid flow analysis are slightly modified to include the characteristics of the PEMFC. The analysis results indicate that the serpentine flow-fields are locally unstable (because two channels are cross at right angles). The spiral flow-fields has more stable than the serpentine, due to rotational fluid-flow inertia forces. From this study, the spiral channel pattern is suggested for a channel pattern of the bipolar plate of the PEMFC to obtain better performance.

• 대한기계학회논문집B
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• 제33권4호
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• pp.288-297
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• 2009

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a fuel cell has a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions. The pressure gradient helps some amount of reactant gas penetrate through a gas diffusion layer(GDL). As a result, the overall serpentine flow structure is slightly different from the intention of a designer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of serpentine flow structure on current density distribution. By using a commercial code, STAR-CD, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the fuel cell with high aspect ratio of active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compressive forces. Three-dimensional flow field and current density distribution are calculated. For the verification of the numerical simulation results, water condensation process in the cathode channel is observed through a transparent bipolar plate. The result of this study shows that the region of relatively low current density corresponds that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2007년도 추계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.147-151
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• 2007

A serpentine channel geometry often used in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell has a strong pressure gradient between adjacent channels in specific regions. The pressure gradient helps some amount of reactant gas penetrate through a gas diffusion layer(GDL). As a result, the overall serpentine flow structure is slightly different from intention of a designer. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of serpentine flow structure on current density distribution. By using a commercial code, STAR-CD, a numerical simulation is performed to analyze the fuel cell with relatively high aspect ratio active area. To increase the accuracy of the numerical simulation, GDL permeabilities are measured with various compression conditions. Three-dimensional flow field and current density distribution are calculated. For the verification of the numerical simulation results, water condensation process in the cathode channel is observed through a transparent bipolar plate. The result of this study shows that the region of relatively low current density corresponds to that of dropwise condensation in cathode channels.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1997년도 추계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.528-533
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• 1997

A CANFLEX(CANdu FLEXible fuelling) 43-element bundle has developed for a CANDU-6 reactor as an alternative of 37-element fuel bundle. The design has two diameter elements (11.5 and 13.5㎜) to reduce maximum element power rating and buttons to enhance the critical heat flux(CHF), compared with the standard 37-element bundle. The freon CHF experiments have performed for two series of CANFLEX bundles with and without buttons with a modelling fluid as refrigerant H-l34a and axial uniform heat flux condition. Evaluating the effects of buttons of CANFLEX bundle on CHF and Critical Channel Power(CCP) with the experimental results, it is shown that the buttons enhance CCP as well as CHF. All the CHF's for both the CANFLEX bundles are occurred at the end of fuel channel with the high dryout quality conditions. The CHF enhancement ratio are increased with increase of dryout quality for all flow conditions and also with increase of mass flux only lot high pressure conditions. It indicates that the button is a useful design lot CANDU operating condition because most CHF flow conditions for CANDU fuel bundle are ranged to high dryout quality conditions.

• 한국압력기기공학회 논문집
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• 제19권1호
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• pp.27-35
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• 2023

Pressure tubes are the main components of PHWR core and serve as the pressure boundary of the primary heat transport system. However, because pressure tubes have changed their geometrical dimensions under the severe operating conditions of high temperature, high pressure and neutron irradiation according to the increase of operation time, all dimensional changes should be predicted to ensure that dimensions remain within the allowable design ranges during the operation. Among the deformations, the diameter expansion due to creep leads to the increase of bypass flow which may not contribute to the fuel cooling, the decrease of critical channel power and finally the deration of the power to maintain the operational safety margin. This study is focused on the modeling of the expansion of the pressure tube diameter based on the operating conditions and measured diameter data. The pressure tube diameter expansion was modeled using the neutron flux and temperature distributions of each fuel channel and each fuel bundle as well as the measured diameter data. Although the basic concept of the current modeling approach is simple, the diameter prediction results using the developed methodology showed very good agreement with the real data, compared to the existing methodology.

• 한국원자력학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국원자력학회 1995년도 추계학술발표회논문집(1)
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• pp.41-47
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• 1995

A parametric study bas been performed for the various refueling schemes of CANDU 6 reactor loaded with reference DUPIC fuel. The optimum discharge burnup was determined such that the peak bundle power is minimized for the equilibrium core. Based on the results of instantaneous core calculation using patterned random age distributions, it was decided to perform the refueling simulations only for 2-bundle and 4-bundle shift refueling schemes. The 600 FPD simulation has shown that the operational margins of the channel and bundle power to the license limits are 7.9% and 17.1%, respectively, for 2-bundle shift refueling scheme. The 4-bundle shift refueling scheme also satisfies the license limits and the operational margins of the channel and bundle power are 7.1% and 9.8%, respectively. The result of refueling simulation indicate the possibility of using reference DUPIC fuel in current CANDU 6 reactor.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제28권3호
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• pp.280-289
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• 1996

The pressure drop of twelve fuel bundle string in the CANDU-6 fuel channel is equal to the sum of the eleven junction pressure losses, the bundle string entrance and exit pressure losses, the skin friction pressure loss, and other appendage pressure losses, where the junction loss is dependent on the bundle end faces and angular alignments of the junctions. The results of the single junction pressure drop tests in a short rig show that the most probable pressure drop of the eleven junctions was analytically equal to the eleven times of average pressure drop of all the possible single junction pressure drops, and also that the largest and smallest junction pressure drops across the eleven junctions probably occurred only with BA and BB type junctions, respectively, where A and B denote the bundle end sides with an end-plates on which a company monogram is stamped and unstamped, respectively.

• 공업화학
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• 제32권6호
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• pp.613-620
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• 2021

고분자전해질 연료전지의 유로 형상은 내부 유동의 균일성에 영향을 주는 변수이다. 유로 내에서 반응물 분포가 균일하지 않을 경우, 지속적인 운전 과정에서 촉매의 열화 및 고분자 막의 기계적 손상이 야기되며 연료전지의 내구 수명 저하로 이어진다. 연료전지에서 원활한 반응물 공급과 균일한 농도 분포를 위하여 유로 형상에 관한 연구들이 활발히 진행되고 있다. 유로의 배플은 유체의 강제 대류를 야기해 연료전지의 성능을 개선할 수 있고, 유로 중간에 새로운 반응물 공급 통로(서브 채널)를 만들어 반응물 농도 증가와 원활한 물 배출로 물질 전달 손실을 감소시킬 수 있다. 본 연구에서는 전산 유체 계산을 통하여 블록과 서브 채널을 적용한 유로가 연료전지의 전류밀도와 산소 농도에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다. 블록과 서브 채널이 유로에 구성되었을 때, 한계전류밀도가 증가하였고 블록 후단의 산소 농도가 회복되었다. 블록이 2개 이상 있을 때 블록 사이에 서브 채널을 배치할 경우 전류밀도 증가 폭이 더욱 커졌다. 또한 추가 공급되는 공기의 공급 위치에 따른 산소 농도를 분석하여 서브 채널이 블록 후단의 낮아진 산소 농도를 회복할 수 있었다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제28권4호
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• pp.373-378
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• 1996

The CANFLEX fuel bundle has been developed by KAERI/AECL jointly to facilitate the use of various fuel cycles in CANDU-6 reactor. The structural analysis of the fuel bundles by hydraulic drag force is performed to evaluate the fuel integrity during the refuelling service. The present analysis method is newly developed for the structural integrity valuation by studying FEM modelling for the fuel bundles in a fuel channel. As compared the results of the mechanical strength test the displacement value of endplate given by analysis results shoo6 to be good agreement within 15% under the maximum design drag load. As the results of analysis, it is shown to keep the structural integrity of CANFLEX fuel bundles under hydraulic drag load during the refuelling service.