Annular Flow Simulation Supported by Iterative In-Memory Mesh Adaptation

Fang, Jun; Purser, Meredith K.; Smith, Cameron; Balakrishnan, Ramesh; Bolotnov, Igor A.; Jansen, Kenneth E.

doi:10.1080/00295639.2020.1743577

Annular Flow Simulation Supported by Iterative In-Memory Mesh Adaptation

Journal Article · Fri May 15 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Nuclear Science and Engineering

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2020.1743577· OSTI ID:1756316

^[1]; Purser, Meredith K. ^[2]; Smith, Cameron ^[3]; Balakrishnan, Ramesh ^[4]; ^[5]; ^[2]

Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States)
Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (United States)
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States). Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF)
North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States)

Various flow regimes exist in a boiling water reactor (BWR) as the steam quality increases in the uprising coolant flow, from bubbly flow, slug/churn flow, to annular flow. The annular flow is characterized by the presence of a fast-moving gas core and the surrounding liquid film flowing on the conduit wall. Additionally, entrained droplets can be observed in the gas core with ingested bubbles in the liquid film. The dynamics occurring on the wavy interface between the liquid film and gas core plays a crucial role in affecting the heat transfer rate and pressure drop within the BWR core. However, a fundamental understanding of annular flow is still lacking, partly due to the difficulty in obtaining detailed local data in annular flow experiments. In the current study, a novel simulation framework is developed for the annular flow by coupling a computational fluid dynamics flow solver with state-of-the-art meshing software. The gas-liquid interface is tracked with the level set method. Based on the computed flow solutions, the computational mesh is dynamically adapted in memory to meet the local mesh resolution requirement. This iterative simulation-adaptation framework can ensure the fine mesh resolution across the interface, which not only helps mitigate the mass conservation degradation known to level set methods but also improves the representation of dramatic interface topological changes such as wave breaking and droplet entrainment. The present investigation will shed light onto the complex interfacial processes involved in annular flow and generate much needed simulation data for annular flow modeling.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

OSTI ID:: 1756316

Journal Information:: Nuclear Science and Engineering, Journal Name: Nuclear Science and Engineering Journal Issue: 8-9 Vol. 194; ISSN 0029-5639

Publisher:: American Nuclear Society - Taylor & FrancisCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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