Numerical and Experimental Study of Thermal Stratification Outside a Small SMR Containment Vessel

Gasim Albadawi, Shengfei Wang and Xingdi Cao
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Gasim Albadawi: Beijing Key Laboratory of Passive Safety Technology for Nuclear Energy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Shengfei Wang: Beijing Key Laboratory of Passive Safety Technology for Nuclear Energy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing 102206, China
Xingdi Cao: China Nuclear Power Engineering Co. Ltd., Beijing 100840, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-8

Abstract: A Small Modular Reactor’s (SMR) containment vessel (CNV) is submerged in the reactor cooling pool, which supplies a passive heat sink for containment to remove heat during Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA). The heat transfer efficiency of passive safety systems is affected by thermal stratification processes. This study aims to explain the phenomenon of thermal stratification in SMR’s reactor pool. A small scaled containment vessel with an electric heater inside immersed in a pool of water was used to simulate this phenomenon. The results show how the thermal stratification formed. Moreover, a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model was built using ANSYS FLUENT. Experimental data were compared with simulation results, and the standard k-ε model was found to be suitable for calculating thermal stratification in the pool outside the containment.

Keywords: small modular reactor; natural convection; thermal stratification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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