EXAMINATION OF A PROPOSED VALIDATION DATA SET USING CFD CALCULATIONS

Conference · Sat Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 2009

OSTI ID:963746

Johnson, Richard W

The United States Department of Energy is promoting the resurgence of nuclear power in the U. S. for both electrical power generation and production of process heat required for industrial processes such as the manufacture of hydrogen for use as a fuel in automobiles. The DOE project is called the next generation nuclear plant (NGNP) and is based on a Generation IV reactor concept called the very high temperature reactor (VHTR), which will use helium as the coolant at temperatures ranging from 450 ºC to perhaps 1000 ºC. While computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has not been used for past safety analysis for nuclear reactors in the U. S., it is being considered for such for future reactors. It is fully recognized that CFD simulation codes will have to be validated for flow physics reasonably close to actual fluid dynamic conditions expected in normal and accident operational situations. To this end, experimental data have been obtained in a scaled model of a narrow slice of the lower plenum of a prismatic VHTR. The present article presents new results of CFD examinations of these data to explore potential issues with the geometry, the initial conditions, the flow dynamics and the data needed to fully specify the inlet and boundary conditions; results for several turbulence models are examined. Issues are addressed and recommendations about the data are made.

• Research Organization: Idaho National Laboratory (INL)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE - NE
• DOE Contract Number: AC07-99ID13727
• OSTI ID: 963746
• Report Number(s): INL/CON-09-15629
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
ACCIDENTS
AUTOMOBILES
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
CFD
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COOLANTS
FLUID MECHANICS
GEOMETRY
HELIUM
HYDROGEN
NGNP
NUCLEAR POWER
PHYSICS
POWER GENERATION
PROCESS HEAT
REACTORS
SAFETY ANALYSIS
Standard Problem
TURBULENCE
VALIDATION
VHTR