CFD Modeling of Sodium-Oxide Deposition in Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Compact Heat Exchangers
Abstract
The possible use of compact heat exchangers (HXs) in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFR) employing a Brayton cycle is promising due to their high power density and resulting small volume in comparison with conventional shell-and-tube HXs. However, the small diameter of their channels makes them more susceptible to plugging due to Na2O deposition during accident conditions. Although cold traps are designed to reduce oxygen impurity levels in the sodium coolant, their failure, in conjunction with accidental air ingress into the sodium boundary, could result in coolant oxygen levels that are above the saturation limit in the cooler parts of the HX channels. This can result in Na2O crystallization and the formation of solid deposits on cooled channel surfaces, limiting or even blocking coolant flow. The development of analysis tools capable of modeling the formation of these deposits in the presence of sodium flow will allow designers of SFRs to properly size the HX channels so that, in the scenario mentioned above, the reactor operator has sufficient time to detect and react to the affected HX. Until now, analytical methodologies to predict the formation of these deposits have been developed, but never implemented in a high-fidelity computational tool suited to modern reactormore »
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Westinghouse Electric Company
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
- Contributing Org.:
- Westinghouse Electric Company, Argonne National Laboratory
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1259204
- Report Number(s):
- DOE-WEC-0000611-3
- DOE Contract Number:
- NE0000611
- Resource Type:
- Conference
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 16th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermalhydraulics (NURETH), Chicago IL, Aug. 30-Sept 4, 2015
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS; 97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING; CFD, sodium plugging, sodium fast reactor
Citation Formats
Tatli, Emre, Ferroni, Paolo, and Mazzoccoli, Jason. CFD Modeling of Sodium-Oxide Deposition in Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Compact Heat Exchangers. United States: N. p., 2015.
Web.
Tatli, Emre, Ferroni, Paolo, & Mazzoccoli, Jason. CFD Modeling of Sodium-Oxide Deposition in Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Compact Heat Exchangers. United States.
Tatli, Emre, Ferroni, Paolo, and Mazzoccoli, Jason. 2015.
"CFD Modeling of Sodium-Oxide Deposition in Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Compact Heat Exchangers". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1259204.
@article{osti_1259204,
title = {CFD Modeling of Sodium-Oxide Deposition in Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor Compact Heat Exchangers},
author = {Tatli, Emre and Ferroni, Paolo and Mazzoccoli, Jason},
abstractNote = {The possible use of compact heat exchangers (HXs) in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFR) employing a Brayton cycle is promising due to their high power density and resulting small volume in comparison with conventional shell-and-tube HXs. However, the small diameter of their channels makes them more susceptible to plugging due to Na2O deposition during accident conditions. Although cold traps are designed to reduce oxygen impurity levels in the sodium coolant, their failure, in conjunction with accidental air ingress into the sodium boundary, could result in coolant oxygen levels that are above the saturation limit in the cooler parts of the HX channels. This can result in Na2O crystallization and the formation of solid deposits on cooled channel surfaces, limiting or even blocking coolant flow. The development of analysis tools capable of modeling the formation of these deposits in the presence of sodium flow will allow designers of SFRs to properly size the HX channels so that, in the scenario mentioned above, the reactor operator has sufficient time to detect and react to the affected HX. Until now, analytical methodologies to predict the formation of these deposits have been developed, but never implemented in a high-fidelity computational tool suited to modern reactor design techniques. This paper summarizes the challenges and the current status in the development of a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methodology to predict deposit formation, with particular emphasis on sensitivity studies on some parameters affecting deposition.},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1259204},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Sep 02 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Wed Sep 02 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}