CFD analysis of flow blockage phenomena in a LBE-cooled 19-pin wire-wrapped rod bundle

•CFD simulation of flow blockage accident and its induced heat transfer impairment is performed.•Three dimensional distributions of fluid and solid temperature downstream the blockage are obtained.•The influence from the blockage area and its location on the temperature peaks and inter-channel mixin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nuclear engineering and design 2019-04, Vol.344, p.107-121
Main Authors: Chai, Xiang, Liu, Xiaojing, Xiong, Jinbiao, Cheng, Xu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accidents
Bundling
CFD
Channels
Cladding
Computational fluid dynamics
Computer simulation
Cross flow
Dependence
Fission products
Flow blockage accident
Heat transfer
Inter-channel mixing
Lead-bismuth eutectic
Rod bundle
Simulation
Surface temperature
Temperature distribution
Temperature effects
Three dimensional flow
Wire
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Summary:•CFD simulation of flow blockage accident and its induced heat transfer impairment is performed.•Three dimensional distributions of fluid and solid temperature downstream the blockage are obtained.•The influence from the blockage area and its location on the temperature peaks and inter-channel mixing is analyzed. Flow blockage accident is a severe accident. When fuel assembly is partially or totally blocked, the heat transfer between coolant and cladding is significant impaired due to a rapid decrease of coolant flow, which leads to a local increase of cladding and coolant temperature and possibly results in a release of fission products. A recirculation region is formed downstream the blockage and a temperature peak can be found in this region. In this paper, CFD modelling and simulation for a LBE-cooled 19-pin wire-wrapped bundle were carried out to consider the influence from the flow blockage on the rod surface temperature and cross flow. Three-dimensional flow and temperature distributions of LBE were obtained using commercial CFD software. The influence from the blockage area and its location was investigated as well as the axial length of blockages. It was found that flow blockages in the center of bundle result in a higher surface temperature while comparing with blockages in the side sub-channels. The cross flow between sub-channels through gaps has been evaluated and their dependency on the blockage area is also evaluated based on CFD simulation results.
ISSN:0029-5493
1872-759X
DOI:10.1016/j.nucengdes.2019.01.019