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  • Accepted Manuscript: Steady RANS methodology for calculating pressure drop in an in-line molten salt compact crossflow heat exchanger

This content will become publicly available on August 21, 2018

Title: Steady RANS methodology for calculating pressure drop in an in-line molten salt compact crossflow heat exchanger

We report the development of molten salt cooled reactors (MSR) and fluoride-salt cooled high temperature reactors (FHR) requires the use of advanced design tools for the primary heat exchanger design. Due to geometric and flow characteristics, compact (pitch to diameter ratios equal to or less than 1.25) heat exchangers with a crossflow flow arrangement can become desirable for these reactors. Unfortunately, the available experimental data is limited for compact tube bundles or banks in crossflow. Computational Fluid Dynamics can be used to alleviate the lack of experimental data in these tube banks. Previous computational efforts have been primarily focused on large S/D ratios (larger than 1.4) using unsteady Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes and Large Eddy Simulation frameworks. These approaches are useful, but have large computational requirements that make comprehensive design studies impractical. A CFD study was conducted with steady RANS in an effort to provide a starting point for future design work. The study was performed for an in-line tube bank geometry with FLiBe (LiF-BeF2), a frequently selected molten salt, as the working fluid. Based on the estimated pressure drops, the pressure and velocity distributions in the domain, an appropriate meshing strategy was determined and presented. Periodic boundaries in the spanwisemore » direction transverse flow were determined to be an appropriate boundary condition for reduced computational domains. The domain size was investigated and a minimum of 2-flow channels for a domain is recommended to ensure the behavior is accounted for. Finally, the standard low Re κ-ε (Lien) turbulence model was determined to be the most appropriate for steady RANS of this case at the time of writing.« less
Authors:
ORCiD logo [1] ; ORCiD logo [2] ;  [1] ;  [1]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States). Department of Nuclear Engineering
  2. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). NE Division
Publication Date:
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357
Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Progress in Nuclear Energy
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 101; Journal Issue: PB; Journal ID: ISSN 0149-1970
Publisher:
Elsevier
Research Org:
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
42 ENGINEERING; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Crossflow; Heat Exchangers; Steady RANS; Tube Bank
OSTI Identifier:
1422555