Study on mixing phenomena in T-pipe junction; Experimental analysis using DNS and investigation of mixing process

Igarashi, Minoru; Kawashima, Shigeyo*; Nakane, Shigeru*; Tanaka, Masaaki  ; Kimura, Nobuyuki; Kamide, Hideki 

In the place where hot and cold fluids are mixed, a time and spatial temperature fluctuation occurs. When this temperature fluctuation amplitude is large, it causes high cycle thermal fatigue in surrounding structure (thermal striping phenomena). Mixing area of high and low temperature fluid exists not only in an atomic power plant but also in a general plant, then, it is significant to investigate this phenomena and also to establish an evaluation rule. In Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute, several experiments and the improvement of the analysis methods have been carried out to understand thermal striping phenomena and also to construct an evaluation rule, which can be applied to design. Water Experiment on Fluid Mixing in T-pipe with Long Cycle Fluctuation (WATLON), aiming at examining thermal striping phenomena in a mixing tee, is performed to investigate key factors of mixing phenomena. In this study, in order to investigate the fluid mixing phenomena, temperature and flow velocity distribution were measured by movable thermocouple tree and particle image velocimetory (PIV). And the analysis using a in-house direct numerical simulation (DNS) code, DINUS-3 was performed to understand applicability of the analytical method in mixing tee. The temperature and velocity fields obtained from the DINUS-3 were in good agreement with the experimental results. And the prominent frequency of temperature fluctuation was also in good agreement. The DINUS-3 calculation simulated vortex structure in the wake region behind the branch pipe jet. The results of analysis showed that a Karman vortex generated in the wake region behind the branch pipe jet influenced the temperature fluctuation behavior in the mixing tee. And the analytical results revealed that the vortex generated in the wake region behind the branch pipe jet showed the 3-dimensional behavior.