Validation of the hybrid turbulence model in detailed thermal-hydraulic analysis code SPIRAL for fuel assembly using sodium experiments data of 37-pin bundles

Yoshikawa, Ryuji; Imai, Yasutomo*; Kikuchi, Norihiro; Tanaka, Masaaki; Ohshima, Hiroyuki

Nuclear Technology, 210(5), p.814 - 835, 2024/05

https://doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2249707

In the study of safety enhancement on advanced sodium-cooled fast reactor, it is essential to clarify the thermal-hydraulics under various operation conditions in a fuel assembly (FA) with the wire-wrapped fuel pins to assess the structural integrity of the fuel pin. A finite element thermal-hydraulics analysis code named SPIRAL has been developed to analyze the detailed thermal-hydraulics phenomena in a FA. In this study, the numerical simulations of the 37-pin bundle sodium experiments at different Re number conditions, including a transitional condition between laminar and turbulent flows and turbulent flow conditions, were performed to validate the hybrid turbulence model equipped in SPIRAL. The temperature distributions predicted by SPIRAL was consistent with those measured in the experiments. Through the validation study, the applicability of the hybrid turbulence model in SPIRAL to thermal-hydraulic evaluation of sodium-cooled FA in the wide range of Re number was confirmed.

Iterative methods with mixed-precision preconditioning for ill-conditioned linear systems in multiphase CFD simulations

Ina, Takuya*; Idomura, Yasuhiro; Imamura, Toshiyuki*; Yamashita, Susumu; Onodera, Naoyuki

Proceedings of 12th Workshop on Latest Advances in Scalable Algorithms for Large-Scale Systems ScalA21) (Internet), 8 Pages, 2021/11

https://doi.org/10.1109/ScalA54577.2021.00006

A new mixed-precision preconditioner based on the iterative refinement (IR) method is developed for preconditioned conjugate gradient (P-CG) and multigrid preconditioned conjugate gradient (MGCG) solvers in a multi-phase thermal-hydraulic CFD code JUPITER. In the IR preconditioner, all data is stored in FP16 to reduce memory access, while all computation is performed in FP32. The hybrid FP16/32 implementation keeps the similar convergence property as FP32, while the computational performance is close to FP16. The developed solvers are optimized on Fugaku (A64FX), and applied to ill-conditioned matrices in JUPITER. The P-CG and MGCG solvers with the new IR preconditioner show excellent strong scaling up to 8,000 nodes, and at 8,000 nodes, they are respectively accelerated up to 4.86 and 2.39 from the conventional ones on Oakforest-PACS (KNL).

Development of an integrated computer code system for analyzing irradiation behaviors of a fast reactor fuel

Uwaba, Tomoyuki; Nemoto, Junichi*; Ito, Masahiro*; Ishitani, Ikuo*; Doda, Norihiro; Tanaka, Masaaki; Otsuka, Satoshi

Nuclear Technology, 207(8), p.1280 - 1289, 2021/08

https://doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2020.1810977

Computer codes for irradiation behavior analysis of a fuel pin and a fuel pin bundle and for coolant thermal hydraulics analysis were coupled into an integrated code system. In the system, each code provides data required by other codes and the analyzed results are shared among them. The system allows for the synthesizing of analyses of thermal, chemical and mechanical behaviors in a fuel subassembly under irradiation. A test analysis was made for a fuel subassembly containing a mixed oxide fuel pin bundle irradiated in a fast reactor. The results of the analysis were presented with transverse cross-sectional images of the fuel subassembly and three-dimensional images of a fuel pin and fuel pin bundle models. For detailed evaluation, various irradiation behaviors of all fuel pins in the subassembly were analyzed and correlated with irradiation conditions.

Chapter 18, Moving particle semi-implicit method

Wang, Z.; Duan, G.*; Koshizuka, Seiichi*; Yamaji, Akifumi*

Nuclear Power Plant Design and Analysis Codes, p.439 - 461, 2021/00

https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-818190-4.00018-8

Preliminary analysis of sodium experimental apparatus PLANDTL-2 for development of evaluation method for thermal-hydraulics in reactor vessel of sodium fast reactor under decay heat removal system operation condition

Ono, Ayako; Tanaka, Masaaki; Miyake, Yasuhiro*; Hamase, Erina; Ezure, Toshiki

Mechanical Engineering Journal (Internet), 7(3), p.19-00546_1 - 19-00546_11, 2020/06

https://doi.org/10.1299/mej.19-00546

Fully natural circulation decay heat removal systems (DHRSs) are to be adopted for sodium fast reactors, which is a passive safety feature without any electrical pumps. It is required to grasp the thermal-hydraulic phenomena in the reactor vessel and evaluate the coolability of the core under the natural circulation not only for the normal operating condition but also for severe accident conditions. In this paper, the numerical results of the preliminary analysis for the sodium experimental condition with the PLANDTL-2 are discussed to establish an appropriate numerical models for the reactor core including the gap region among the subassemblies and the DHX. From these preliminary analyses, the characteristics of the thermal-hydraulics behavior in the PLANDTL-2 to be focused are extracted.

Effect of coolant water temperature of ECCS on failure probability of RPV

Katsuyama, Jinya; Masaki, Koichi; Lu, K.; Watanabe, Tadashi*; Li, Y.

Proceedings of 2019 ASME Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference (PVP 2019) (Internet), 7 Pages, 2019/07

For reactor pressure vessel (RPV) of pressurized water reactor, temperature of coolant water in emergency core cooling system (ECCS) may have influence on the structural integrity of RPV during pressurized thermal shock (PTS) events. Focusing on a mitigation measure to raise the coolant water temperature of ECCS for aged RPVs in order to reduce the effect of thermal shock due to PTS events, we performed thermal hydraulic analyses and probabilistic fracture mechanics analyses by using RELAP5 and PASCAL4, respectively. From the analysis results, it was shown that the failure probability of RPV was dramatically reduced when the coolant temperature in accumulator as well as high and low pressure injection systems (HPI/LPI) was raised, although raising the coolant temperature of HPI/LPI only did not cause reduction in the failure probability.

Thermal-hydraulics technological strategy roadmap 2017; An Approach for continuous safety improvement of LWRs

Itoi, Tatsuya*; Iwaki, Chikako*; Onuki, Akira*; Kito, Kazuaki*; Nakamura, Hideo; Nishida, Akemi; Nishi, Yoshihisa*

Nihon Genshiryoku Gakkai-Shi ATOMO, 60(4), p.221 - 225, 2018/04

no abstracts in English

Study on the thermal-hydraulic of TEF-T LBE spallation target in JAEA

Wan, T.; Obayashi, Hironari; Sasa, Toshinobu

Proceedings of 17th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-17) (USB Flash Drive), 13 Pages, 2017/09

Evaluation of sodium pool fire and thermal consequence in two-cell configuration

Takata, Takashi; Ohno, Shuji; Tajima, Yuji*

Mechanical Engineering Journal (Internet), 4(3), p.16-00577_1 - 16-00577_11, 2017/06

http://doi.org/10.1299/mej.16-00577

Evaluation of accidental sodium leak, combustion, and its thermal consequence is one of the important issues to be assessed in the field of sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR). The present paper deals with the sodium pool fire and subsequent heat transfer behavior in air atmosphere two-cell geometry both experimentally and analytically because such two-cell configuration is considered as a typical one to possess important characteristic of multi-compartment system seen in an actual plant. As a result of the numerical analysis using a lumped-parameter based zonal model safety analysis code SPHINCS, the applicability of the ventilation model implemented in SPHINCS has been demonstrated. It is also investigated that the buoyancy- driven ventilation is dominant in the experiment.

Development of fuel temperature calculation code "FTCC" for high temperature gas-cooled reactors

Inaba, Yoshitomo; Isaka, Kazuyoshi; Shibata, Taiju

JAEA-Data/Code 2017-002, 74 Pages, 2017/03

JAEA-Data-Code-2017-002.pdf:2.36MB

In order to ensure the thermal integrity of fuel in High Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors (HTGRs), it is necessary that the maximum fuel temperature in normal operation is to be lower than a thermal design target. In the core thermal-hydraulic design of block-type HTGRs, the maximum fuel temperature should be evaluated considering data such as core geometry and specifications, power density and neutron fluence distributions, and core coolant flow distribution. The fuel temperature calculation code used in the design stage of the High Temperature engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) presupposes to run on UNIX systems, and its operation and execution procedure are complicated and are not user-friendly. Therefore, a new fuel temperature calculation code, named FTCC, which has a user-friendly system such as a simple and easy operation and execution procedure, was developed. This report describes the calculation objects and models, the basic equations, the strong points (improvement points from the HTTR design code), the code structure, the using method of FTCC, and the result of a validation calculation with FTCC. The calculation result obtained by FTCC provides good agreement with that of the HTTR design code, and then FTCC will be used as one of the design codes for high temperature gas-cooled reactors. In addition, the effect of hot spot factors and fuel cooling forms on reducing the maximum fuel temperature is investigated with FTCC. As a result, it was found that the effect of center hole cooling for hollow fuel compacts and gapless cooling with monolithic type fuel rods on reducing the temperature is very high.