Preliminary studies of coolant by-pass flows in a prismatic very high temperature reactor using computational fluid dynamics

Conference · Tue Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 2009

OSTI ID:968670

Sato, Hiroyuki; Johnson, Richard; Schultz, Richard

Three dimensional computational fluid dynamic (CFD) calculations of a typical prismatic very high temperature gas-cooled reactor (VHTR) were conducted to investigate the influence of gap geometry on flow and temperature distributions in the reactor core using commercial CFD code FLUENT. Parametric calculations changing the gap width in a whole core length model of fuel and reflector columns were performed. The simulations show the effects of core by-pass flows in the heated core region by comparing results for several gap widths including zero gap width. The calculation results underline the importance of considering inter-column gap width for the evaluation of maximum fuel temperatures and temperature gradients in fuel blocks. In addition, it is shown that temperatures of core outlet flow from gaps and channels are strongly affected by the gap width of by-pass flow in the reactor core.

• Research Organization: Idaho National Laboratory (INL)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE - NE
• DOE Contract Number: AC07-05ID14517
• OSTI ID: 968670
• Report Number(s): INL/CON-09-15885
• Conference Information: 13th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-13),Kanazawa, Japan,09/27/2009,10/02/2009
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS
bypass flow
CFD
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COOLANTS
EVALUATION
FLUID MECHANICS
GAS COOLED REACTORS
GEOMETRY
prismatic
REACTOR CORES
REACTORS
TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION
TEMPERATURE GRADIENTS
THERMAL HYDRAULICS
VHTR