• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.33-39
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• 2017

This paper describes the system engineering approach for the heat transfer analysis of plus7 fuel rod for APR1400 using, a commercial software, ANSYS. The fuel rod is composed of fuel pellets, fill gas, end caps, plenum spring and cladding. The heat is transferred from the pellet outward by conduction through the pellet, fill gas and cladding and further by convection from the cladding surface to the coolant in the flow channel. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the temperature and heat flux change from the fuel centerline to the cladding surface when having maximum fuel centerline temperature at 100% power. This phenomenon is modelled using the ANSYS FEM code and analyzed for steady state temperature distribution across the fuel pellet and clad and the results were compared to the standard values given in APR1400 SSAR. Specifically the applicability of commercial software in the evaluation of nuclear fuel temperature distribution has been accounted. It is note that special codes have been used for fuel rod mechanical analysis which calculates interrelated effects of temperature, pressure, cladding elastic and plastic behavior, fission gas release, and fuel densification and swelling under the time-varying irradiation conditions. To satisfactorily meet this objective we apply system engineering methodologies to formulate the process and allow for verification and validation of the results acquired. The close proximity of the results obtained validated the accuracy of the FEM analysis of the 2D axisymmetric model and 3D model. This result demonstrated the validity of commercial software instead of proprietary in-house code that is more costly to develop and maintain.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.35 no.8
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• pp.699-705
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• 2007

Recent experimental data shows that the noticeable feature of irregular roughened spots on the fuel surface occurs during the combustion test with PMMA/GOX in the hybrid rocket motor. The generation of these unexpected patterns is likely to be resulted from the disturbed boundary layer due caused by wall blowing which is intented to simulate the process of fuel vaporization. LES technique was implemented to investigate both the flow characteristics near fuel surface and the subsequent evolution of turbulence modified by the wall blowing. Simple channel geometry instead of circular grain configuration was used for the investigation without chemical reactions in order to allow for a focused examination on the near-wall behavior at the Reynolds number of 22,500. It was shown that the wall blowing pushed turbulent structures upwards making them tilted and this skewed displacement, in effect, left the foot prints of the structures on the surface. This change of kinematics may explain the formation of irregular isolated spots on the fuel surface observed in the experiment.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.9-16
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• 2014

A proton exchange membrane is a core component in the proton exchange membrane fuel cell because the role of proton exchange membrane(PEM)is supplying proton conductivity to fuel cell, a gas separator, and insulating between an anode and cathode. Among various role of PEM, supplying proton conductivity is the most important and the proton conductivity is strongly related the structural evolution of PEM by hydration. Thus a lot of studies have done by past few decade based on small angle X-ray scattering and wide angle X-ray scattering for understanding morphological structure of the PEM. Resulting from these studies, several morphological models of hydrated PEM are proposed. Current sensing atomic force microscopy (CSAFM) can map morphology and conductance on the membrane simultaneously. It can be the best tool for studying heterogenous structured materials such as PEM. In this study, the hydration of the membrane is examined by using CSAFM. Conductance and morphological images are simultaneously mapped under different relative humidity. The conductance images, which are mapped from different relative humidity, are analyzed by statistical methode for understanding ionic channel variation in PEM.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.245-251
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• 2016

A numerical model is developed to predict distributions of current density and temperature. Also the complete fuel cell performances were compared. In this study the effect of flow field design and flow direction on current density and temperature distribution as well as full cell performance. The complete three-dimensional Navier-Stokes equations were solved with convergence of electro-chemical reactions terms. In this paper, the two different flow field design were simulated, straight channel and rectangular serpentine flow channel, which is commonly used. The effect of flow direction, co-flow and counter-flow, was also analyzed. The current density and temperature is higher with abundant oxygen not fuel. Also, temperature distribution was able to be drawn by using computer simulation. In this paper, the relationship among flow pattern, flow field design and current denstity distribution.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.24-34
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• 2022

In order to predict the cooling performance of a regenerative cooling channel using hydrocarbon fuel operating in the supercritical region, it is essential to predict the thermodynamic properties. In this study, a comparative analysis was performed on two-parameter equations of state (SRK(Soave-Redlich-Kwong), PR(Peng-Robinson) equations of state) and three-parameter equations of state (RK-PR equations of state) to appropriately predict density and specific heat according to the critical compressibility factor of polymer hydrocarbons. Representatively, n-dodecane fuel with low critical compressibility factor and JP-10 fuel with high critical compressibility factor were selected, and an appropriate equation of state was presented when predicting the thermodynamic properties of the two fuels. Finally, the prediction results of density and specific heat were compared and verified with NIST REFPROP data.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.76-83
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• 2013

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are regarded as a promising alternative to replace the existing automotive power sources. To get high performance and long-term durability for PEMFC systems, novel water management is essential. To this end, a comprehensive understanding of dynamics of the liquid water droplets within an operating PEMFC plays an important role. In this work, direct visualization of dynamic behaviors of the water droplet in the ex situ unit flow channel of a PEMFC including gas diffusion layer (GDL) is carried out as one of the fundamental studies for novel water management. Water droplet dynamics such as the movement and growth of liquid water droplets are mainly presented. Effects of GDL characteristics and inlet air flow rate on the water droplet transport and its removal from the flow channel are also discussed. The data obtained in this study can contribute to build up the fundamental operating strategy including balanced water removal capacity for automotive PEMFC systems.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.557-565
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• 2022

The effect of flow configuration in ammonia-fed solid oxide fuel cell are investigated by using a three-dimensional numerical model. Typical flow configurations including co-flow and counter-flow are considered. The ammonia is directly fed into the stack without any external reforming process, resulting in an internal decomposition of NH3 in the anode electrode of the stack. The result showed that temperature profile in the case of counter-flow is more uniform than the co-flow configuration. The counter-flow cell, the temperature is highest at the middle of the channel while in the case of co-flow, the temperature is continuously increased and reached maximum value at the outlet area. This leads to a higher averaged current density in counter-flow compared to that of co-flow, about 5%.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.3440-3445
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• 2007

For proton exchange membrane fuel cell, it is very important to design the flow channel on separation plate optimally to maximize the current density at same electrochemical reaction surface and reduce the concentration polarization occurred at high current density. In this paper, three dimensional computation model including anode and cathode domain together was developed to examine effects of flow patterns and operation conditions such as humidity and operating temperature on performance of fuel cell. Results show that voltage at counter flow condition is higher than that at coflow condition in parallel and interdigitated flow pattern. And fuel cell with interdigitated flow pattern which has better mass transport by convection flow through gas diffusion layer has higher performance than with parallel flow pattern but its pressure drop is increased such that the trade off between performance and pressure drop should be considered for selection of flow pattern of fuel cell.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.554-557
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• 2008

In this study, two types of central flow distributor designs are presented and compared to obtain the optimal compact design which has the least flow resistance and the uniform flow distribution in a vehicular fuel cell stack. For effective and reliable prediction on the thermo-flow characteristics of the reactants flow over the entire fuel cell stack domain, open channel flow in the bipolar plates of the power generating cells were simulated by applying a simplified flow resistance model with an empirical porous concept. A number of case studies were performed to figure out an optimal configuration of a central flow distributor device in terms of the time-dependent thermo-flow behavior and load-dependent flow distribution. The results showed that the stable and load-independent thermo-flow uniformity is very design specific, which is closely associated with the design of central manifolding devices in order to achieve the enhanced volumetric power density and the reliable long-lasting operating of fuel cells.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.422-431
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• 2007

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell(PEMFC) is very interesting power source due to high power density, simple construction and operation at low temperature. But it has problems such as high cost, improvement of performance and effect of temperature. These problems can be approached to be solved by using mathematical models which are useful tools for analysis and optimization of fuel cell performance and for heat and water management. In this paper, the present work is to develop an electrochemical model to examine the electrochemical process inside PEM fuel cell. A complete set of considerations of mass, momentum, species and charge is developed and solved numerically with proper account of electrochemical kinetics. When depth of gas channel becomes thinner, diffusion of reactant makes well into gas diffusion layer(GDL) and the performance increases. Although at low current region there is little voltage difference between experimental data of PEM fuel cell and numerical data. When the porosity size of gas diffusion layer for PEM fuel cell is bigger, oxygen diffusion occurs well and oxygen mass fraction appears high in catalyst layer.