Multiphase CFD benchmark of experimental critical heat flux data at PWR operating conditions

Critical Heat Flux (CHF) in flow boiling represents the fundamental upper limit for thermal hydraulic performance of PWR fuel. Currently, the nuclear industry relies on expensive, prototypical experiments using electrically heated, full-height rod assemblies to determine the limit of the boiling crisis. The development of next-generation Multiphase Computational Fluid Dynamics (M-CFD) approaches for the prediction of CHF seeks to represent the detailed physics of the boiling process up to its critical condition, rather than estimating it from ad-hoc thresholds. In this work we evaluate the advancement in M-CFD boiling attained by the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light water reactors (CASL). The CASL approach builds off an industry-lab-university collaboration with individual validation of interfacial momentum closures and wall boiling models.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Skirpan, Zachary.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Emilio Baglietto.

• Nuclear Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127300

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/127300