Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow Characteristics of One Side Heated Vertical Rectangular Channel Inserting Porous Material

Abstract

The Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) is a next generation nuclear reactor system. The passive cooling system should be designed for the VHTR as the best way of reactor vessel cooling system (VCS). Therefore, the gas cooling system with natural circulation is considered as a candidate for the VCS of the VHTR. Furthermore, we examined the heat transfer of rectangular vertical channel using “Spandrel” panel. “Spandrel” is the metallic plate having grooved patterns. The reason is that we can set it at low cost to the VCS because it is a kind of general construction materials. The objective of this study is to examine heat transfer characteristics of one side heated vertical rectangular channel with natural circulation and application of spandrel panel to the VCS of VHTR in order to construct the passive cooling system of the VHTR. We have performed an experiment and a numerical analysis. On experiment, we set the panel to adiabatic wall and supplied 100–400W/m2 heat flux to the panel. In order to obtain the heat transfer and fluid flow characteristics of a vertical channel inserting porous material, we have also carried out a numerical analysis using the commercial CFD code as the first step. From the results obtained in the analysis, it was found that the amount of heat removal was increased for 1–21% by inserting copper wires as porous material. This paper describes a thermal performance of the one-side heated vertical rectangular channel inserting copper wire with high porosity. From the view point of the economical and safety characteristic, the passive cooling system should be designed for the VTHR as the best way of the system. So, the gas cooling system by natural convection is the one of candidate system.