A full-field noninvasive analysis of natural convection around a heated pin using pulsed laser velocimetry

Conference · Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 1990 · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA)

OSTI ID:6022764

Canaan, R E; Hassan, Y A ^[1]

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1. Texas A and M Univ., College Station (USA)

In the light of lingering public concerns regarding the safety issues of current-generation light water reactors (LWRs), a great deal of effort is being directed toward the development of advanced LWR designs (i.e., advanced pressurized and boiling water reactors), which rely heavily on passive or inherent safety features. Such designs focus primarily on safety systems that provide emergency core cooling via natural processes, such as gravity, evaporation, and natural convection. Of these, the last is of primary interest in this work, which invokes a novel full-field, noninvasive flow visualization technique known as digital pulsed laser velocimetry (PLV) to obtain both qualitative and quantitative velocity data for the special case of natural convective flow about a cylindrical heating element within a rectangular transparent enclosure. Simple analytical solutions are very difficult to obtain for most complex geometry flows, especially in the presence of turbulent or unsteady flow fields. Attempts to accurately model such complex flow profiles through the use of empirically or numerically obtained correlations have been employed; however, the effectiveness of such methods is limited to the availability of reliable, high-quality experimental data from similar flow fields, which provide a basis for the modeling. The ability of PLV, in conjunction with advanced image-processing techniques, to capture whole-field instantaneous velocity profile data thus provides a powerful tool for understanding the fundamental thermal-hydraulic aspects of advanced LWR design and simulation.

• OSTI ID: 6022764
• Report Number(s): CONF-900608-; CODEN: TANSA; TRN: 91-008269
• Journal Information: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA), Vol. 61; Conference: American Nuclear Society (ANS) annual meeting, Nashville, TN (USA), 10-14 Jun 1990; ISSN 0003-018X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
42 ENGINEERING
BWR TYPE REACTORS
REACTOR SAFETY
ENGINEERED SAFETY SYSTEMS
HEAT TRANSFER
HYDRAULICS
FLOW VISUALIZATION
PWR TYPE REACTORS
ACCURACY
AVAILABILITY
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
ECCS
IMAGE PROCESSING
LASERS
RELIABILITY
VELOCITY
ENERGY TRANSFER
FLUID MECHANICS
MECHANICS
PROCESSING
REACTOR PROTECTION SYSTEMS
REACTORS
SAFETY
SIMULATION
WATER COOLED REACTORS
WATER MODERATED REACTORS
220900* - Nuclear Reactor Technology- Reactor Safety
210100 - Power Reactors
Nonbreeding
Light-Water Moderated
Boiling Water Cooled
210200 - Power Reactors
Nonbreeding
Light-Water Moderated
Nonboiling Water Cooled
420400 - Engineering- Heat Transfer & Fluid Flow