Design and analysis of RIF scheme to improve the CFD efficiency of rod-type PWR core

Abstract

This research serves to advance the development of engineering computational fluid dynamics (CFD) computing efficiency for the analysis of pressurized water reactor (PWR) core using rod-type fuel assemblies with mixing vanes (one kind of typical PWR core). In this research, a CFD scheme based on the reconstruction of the initial fine flow field (RIF CFD scheme) is proposed and analyzed. The RIF scheme is based on the quantitative regulation of flow velocities in the rod-type PWR core and the principle that the CFD computing efficiency can be improved greatly by a perfect initialization. In this paper, it is discovered that the RIF scheme can significantly improve the computing efficiency of the CFD computation for the rod-type PWR core. Furthermore, the RIF scheme also can reduce the computing resources needed for effective data storage of the large fluid domain in a rod-type PWR core. Moreover, a flow-ranking RIF CFD scheme is also designed based on the ranking of the flow rate, which enhances the utilization of the flow field with a closed flow rate to reconstruct the fine flow field. The flow-ranking RIF CFD scheme also proved to be very effective in improving the CFD efficiency for the rod-type PWR core.