1D and 3D simulation of a water cooled reactor cavity cooling system experimental facility
type: CreativeWork
description: The fourth-generation nuclear reactors have many safety features, including the reactor cavity cooling system (RCCS). This system is intended to remove decay heat from the reactor cavity. Designs exist for both air-cooled and water-cooled configurations. It operates completely passively and is designed to operate without external inputs. The accurate simulation of the phenomena in a reactor cavity cooling system is important for design calculations, to ensure reactor designs that are passively safe. The codes that are used to simulate the phenomena must therefore be verified and validated. One method to validate both a particular design and simulation code is to build an experimental facility based on a prototype. In many cases scale models are constructed of prototype designs. The facility constructed at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) is an example of a scale model of an RCCS. The facility represents a 5° radial slice of the RCCS of the modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor (MHTGR) design. The prime focus of the study is the heated section/heater box of the facility. A study was done by Lisowski (2013) which encompassed single and two-phase experiments as well as a simplified version that was numerically simulated. This study aims to expand on the single-phase simulations done by Lisowski, by making fewer geometry simplifications. The study focussed on simulating the heated section of the UW RCCS facility by using 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and simulating the full loop by using 1D system CFD. The 3D simulations explored different geometric configurations, namely circular riser tubes with and without fins, square tubes with and without fins and rectangular tubes with and without fins. The heat fluxes and temperatures on the surfaces were examined and compared between the different geometry configurations. The 3D CFD code was also coupled with a 1D systems CFD code. The systems were coupled such that the 1D and 3D code would transfer boundary …
abstract: The fourth-generation nuclear reactors have many safety features, including the reactor cavity cooling system (RCCS). This system is intended to remove decay heat from the reactor cavity. Designs exist for both air-cooled and water-cooled configurations. It operates completely passively and is designed to operate without external inputs. The accurate simulation of the phenomena in a reactor cavity cooling system is important for design calculations, to ensure reactor designs that are passively safe. The codes that are used to simulate the phenomena must therefore be verified and validated. One method to validate both a particular design and simulation code is to build an experimental facility based on a prototype. In many cases scale models are constructed of prototype designs. The facility constructed at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) is an example of a scale model of an RCCS. The facility represents a 5° radial slice of the RCCS of the modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor (MHTGR) design. The prime focus of the study is the heated section/heater box of the facility. A study was done by Lisowski (2013) which encompassed single and two-phase experiments as well as a simplified version that was numerically simulated. This study aims to expand on the single-phase simulations done by Lisowski, by making fewer geometry simplifications. The study focussed on simulating the heated section of the UW RCCS facility by using 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and simulating the full loop by using 1D system CFD. The 3D simulations explored different geometric configurations, namely circular riser tubes with and without fins, square tubes with and without fins and rectangular tubes with and without fins. The heat fluxes and temperatures on the surfaces were examined and compared between the different geometry configurations. The 3D CFD code was also coupled with a 1D systems CFD code. The systems were coupled such that the 1D and 3D code would transfer boundary …
author: Niemand, Peter Francke
language: en
keywords: Natural circulation, Reactor cavity cooling system, 1D systems CFD, 3D CFD, 1D/3D coupling
date published: 2021
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:33:37Z
provider: North-West University (South Africa)
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: North-West University (South Africa).

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/10394/38071