Natural circulation FLiBe loop overview

•First BeLi2F4 loop to operate in 40 years.•Salt can withstand large temperature gradients.•Flow is stable but contains odd temperature jumps and spikes.•Heat transfer follows normal correlation behavior but is offset. A new large natural circulation FLiBe loop has operated for the first time in 40 ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of heat and mass transfer 2019-05, Vol.134 (C), p.970-983
Main Authors: Britsch, Karl, Anderson, Mark, Brooks, Paul, Sridharan, Kumar
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerodynamics
Computational fluid dynamics
Computer simulation
ENGINEERING
Flibe
Flow loop
Flow velocity
Fluid flow
Freezing
Heat transfer
High temperature
INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Molten salt
Natural circulation
Nuclear engineering
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
Nuclear reactors
Nuclear safety
Transport phenomena
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Description
Summary:•First BeLi2F4 loop to operate in 40 years.•Salt can withstand large temperature gradients.•Flow is stable but contains odd temperature jumps and spikes.•Heat transfer follows normal correlation behavior but is offset. A new large natural circulation FLiBe loop has operated for the first time in 40 years. Reaching temperatures above 700 °C with stable flow rates around 5 cm/s, the loop exhibits a range of flow phenomena pertinent to high temperature natural circulation safety systems for nuclear reactors. This paper discusses the system and several operating conditions spanning a wide range of behavior to aid the development of other systems, simulation benchmarks, or system-codes. Analysis of heat transport phenomena indicates that standard Nusselt number correlations apply to a first approximation. More accurate salt-freezing models may be necessary for air-cooled salt-systems due to the insulating affect of the low thermal-conductivity frozen salt layer on the cold pipe walls.
ISSN:0017-9310
1879-2189
DOI:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2018.12.180