Experimental study on heat transfer and pressure drop in mercury flow system for spallation neutron source

Abstract

In the design of MW-class spallation target system, using mercury to produce practical neutron applications, keeping the highest level of safety is vitally important. To establish the safety of spallation target system, it is essential to understand the thermal hydraulic properties of mercury. Through thermal hydraulic experiments using a mercury experimental loop, which flows at the rate of 1.2 m3/hr maximum, the following facts were experimentally confirmed. The wall friction factor was relatively larger than the Blasius correlation due to the effects of wall roughness. The heat transfer coefficients agreed well with the Subbotin correlation. Furthermore, for validation of the design analysis code, thermal hydraulic analyses were conducted by using the STAR-CD code under the same conditions as the experiments. Analytical results showed good agreement with the experimental results, using optimized turbulent Prandtl number and mesh size.