Evaluation of CFD Methods for Simulation of Two-Phase Boiling Flow Phenomena in a Helical Coil Steam Generator

William David Pointer, Dillon Shaver, Yang Liu, Prasad Vegendla, Adrian Tentner

Research output: Book/ReportCommissioned report

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Energy charges participants in the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program with the development of advanced modeling and simulation capabilities that can be used to address design, performance and safety challenges in the development and deployment of advanced reactor technology. The NEAMS has established a high impact problem (HIP) team to demonstrate the applicability of these tools to identification and mitigation of sources of steam generator flow induced vibration (SGFIV). The SGFIV HIP team is working to evaluate vibration sources in an advanced helical coil steam generator using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of the turbulent primary coolant flow over the outside of the tubes and CFD simulations of the turbulent multiphase boiling secondary coolant flow inside the tubes integrated with high resolution finite element method assessments of the tubes and their associated structural supports. This report summarizes the demonstration of a methodology for the multiphase boiling flow analysis inside the helical coil steam generator tube. A helical coil steam generator configuration has been defined based on the experiments completed by Polytecnico di Milano in the SIET helical coil steam generator tube facility. Simulations of the defined problem have been completed using the Eulerian-Eulerian multi-fluid modeling capabilities of the commercial CFD code STAR-CCM+. Simulations suggest that the two phases will quickly stratify in the slightly inclined pipe of the helical coil steam generator. These results have been successfully benchmarked against both empirical correlations for pressure drop and simulations using an alternate CFD methodology, the dispersed phase mixture modeling capabilities of the open source CFD code Nek5000.
Original languageEnglish
Place of PublicationUnited States
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016

Keywords

  • 22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS
  • 97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
  • COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
  • STEAM GENERATORS
  • FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
  • BOILING
  • PRIMARY COOLANT CIRCUITS
  • TUBES
  • FLUID MECHANICS
  • EVALUATION
  • SUPPORTS
  • PRESSURE DROP
  • MECHANICAL VIBRATIONS
  • BENCHMARKS
  • CORRELATIONS
  • DESIGN
  • MITIGATION
  • PERFORMANCE
  • HELICAL CONFIGURATION
  • TURBULENT FLOW
  • TWO-PHASE FLOW

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