PRESSURE AND OSCILLATORY FLOWEFFECTS ON THE TWO-PHASE FLOW AND HEAT TRANSFER IN A ROD BUNDLE

Grant Garrett, Faith Beck, Douglas Miller, Brian Lowery, Fan Bill Cheung, Stephen Bajorek, Chris Hoxie, Kirk Tien

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

An experimental and numerical study was performed to investigate the effects of pressure and constant vs oscillatory flooding rates on the two-phase flow and heat transfer behavior of a rod bundle under reflood transient conditions. Experimental results were obtained from the NRC/PSU Rod Bundle Heat Transfer (RBHT) test facility from various test cases covering a range of system pressures with light water as the working coolant. For each pressure case, two experiments were performed, one for a constant flow rate, and one for an oscillating flow rate about the constant flow rate. The RBHT test facility, which contains 49 vertical, 3.66 m (12 ft) long test rods (four unheated corner rods and 45 heated rods) with Inconel 600 cladding in a 7x7 geometry, having the rod diameters, rod pitches and spacer grids comparable to those in commercial PWRs, was specifically designed to obtain fundamental flow and heat transfer data during reflood transients. The thermal-hydraulic code TRAC/RELAP Advanced Computational Engine (TRACE) was used in this study by performing simulations with the same geometry and operating conditions as the RBHT facility for each experiment. Results of the TRACE simulations were compared to the experimental data obtained in the RBHT tests. It was found that the trends on the pressure effects for constant and oscilatory flows on the thermal-hydraulic behavior of the rod bundle (i.e., the two-phase flow and heat transfer behavior of the rod bundle during reflood transients) predicted by the TRACE model agree well with the RBHT data.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationATH 2020 - International Topical Meeting on Advances in Thermal Hydraulics
PublisherAmerican Nuclear Society
Pages194-207
Number of pages14
ISBN (Electronic)9780894487774
StatePublished - 2020
Event2020 International Topical Meeting on Advances in Thermal Hydraulics, ATH 2020 - Virtual, Online
Duration: Oct 20 2020Oct 23 2020

Publication series

NameATH 2020 - International Topical Meeting on Advances in Thermal Hydraulics

Conference

Conference2020 International Topical Meeting on Advances in Thermal Hydraulics, ATH 2020
CityVirtual, Online
Period10/20/2010/23/20

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Nuclear Energy and Engineering
  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
  • Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology

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