Investigation of using a Porous Media Approximation for Flow and Heat Transfer through the Nuclear Materials Storage Facility Drywell Array
The Nuclear Materials Storage Facility (NMSF) is being renovated to provide a safe and secure long-term facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory to store nuclear materials. The concept for storage uses vertical tubes that are called drywells that have nuclear bearing canisters inside the tubes. The NMSF facility may use up to 370 of these tubes containing up to 10 canisters producing 15 W each. Analysts at the Laboratory wish to use CFD computer codes to predict the flow and thermal effects of air flow through the facility and the tube array. However, the complexity and large number of storage tubes precludes modeling the facility in enough detail to resolve the boundary layers around each and every tube. Therefore, certain approximations have to be made. A major approximation that has been used in this modeling effort has been to simulate the array of tubes as a porous media, The assumption-in the use of porous media is that the resistance of the drywells can be accounted for in a general way. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the suitability of the porous media approximation for modeling the tube array in the NMSF. In this study we will compare porous media models results with results from models that resolve the boundary layer around tubes. Finally, we offer a compromise modeling approach to address with this problem.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Defense Programs (DP) (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-36
- OSTI ID:
- 7995
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-98-4025; TRN: US0101844
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: American Society of Mechanical Engineers National Heat Transfer Conference, Albuquerque, NM (US), 08/1999; Other Information: PBD: 21 Apr 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
CFD analysis and experimental investigation associated with the design of the Los Alamos nuclear materials storage facility
General Heat Transfer Characterization and Empirical Models of Material Storage Temperatures for the Los Alamos Nuclear Materials Storage Facility