Investigation of Abnormal Heat Transfer and Flow in a VHTR Reactor Core

Technical Report · Mon Dec 21 00:00:00 EST 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1235373· OSTI ID:1235373

Kawaji, Masahiro ^[1]; Valentin, Francisco I. ^[1]; Artoun, Narbeh ^[1]; Banerjee, Sanjoy ^[1]; Sohal, Manohar ^[2]; Schultz, Richard ^[2]; McEligot, Donald M. ^[2]

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1. City College of New York, NY (United States)
2. Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)

The main objective of this project was to identify and characterize the conditions under which abnormal heat transfer phenomena would occur in a Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) with a prismatic core. High pressure/high temperature experiments have been conducted to obtain data that could be used for validation of VHTR design and safety analysis codes. The focus of these experiments was on the generation of benchmark data for design and off-design heat transfer for forced, mixed and natural circulation in a VHTR core. In particular, a flow laminarization phenomenon was intensely investigated since it could give rise to hot spots in the VHTR core.

• Research Organization: City College of New York, NY (United States); Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE). USDOE Nuclear Energy University Program (NEUP)
• DOE Contract Number: AC07-05ID14517
• OSTI ID: 1235373
• Report Number(s): DOE/NEUP-11-3218; 11-3218; TRN: US1600242
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
NATURAL CONVECTION
FORCED CONVECTION
VHTR REACTOR
PRESSURE RANGE MEGA PA 01-10
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0400-1000 K
DESIGN
VALIDATION
HOT SPOTS
SAFETY ANALYSIS
BENCHMARKS
LAMINAR FLOW
REACTOR CORES