Hydrodynamics around a shroud tube assembly of a fast breeder reactor

Abstract

Control plug assembly of a liquid sodium cooled fast breeder reactor is partially submerged inside the liquid sodium coolant pool, free surface of which is blanketed with cover gas, mainly Argon to provide a non-reactive environment. It receives high velocity coolant flow from the fuel subassembly which travels through annular gap inside Control Safety Rod Driving Mechanism (CSRDM) assembly leading to swelling of free surface and gas entrainment inside the coolant pool. Entrained gas bubbles travel through different submerged components of the reactor and induces numerous complications including reactor power fluctuation, cavitation in inlet pumps and heat transfer inhibition in heat exchangers. Study of hydrodynamics around the shroud tube is crucial to examine cover gas entrainment inside the pool. The present study reports an experimental study on a 1:9 scale down model of CSRDM shroud tube assembly based on Froude number similarity. Eccentricity of the control rod inside the shroud tube is also an important parameter as temperature gradient along the CSRDM assembly leads to longitudinal thermal stress causing displacement of control rod from its center position in the shroud tube. Flow behavior around shroud tube, hump formation at the axial exit of shroud tube, air entrainment inside coolant pool have been reported for various parameters viz. inlet flow rate (qi), free surface height (hf) and eccentricity of central rod (e). Dye visualization, Schlieren visualization, Bulk visualization have been carried out and digital image processing techniques have been adopted for quantification of hump parameters and entrained air fraction inside the coolant pool.The axial flow from the exit of the shroud tube impinges on the free surface like a wall jet. At low Froude number, the impinging jet flow travels radially outward on the interface like a wall jet boundary layer. The shear of the free surface flow drags the jet like flow from the pores upward leading to mixing between the vortices inside the shear layer and the free vortices from the pores of the shroud tube. At high Froude number, the impinging jet like flow penetrates through the interface leading to hump formation. The downward motion of the hump reduces the radial free surface flow and blankets the radial flow from the pores of the shroud tube. The eccentricity of the central rod leads to asymmetric axial flow from the shroud tube and thus the resulting hump becomes asymmetric due to impingement of asymmetric jet. Therefore, the impingement angle of the downward hump motion becomes different at both sides of the shroud tube with asymmetric flow field and bubble formation process inside the liquid pool. However, the synchronization between the hump unsteadiness and the surface wave motion leads to mixing of air bubbles inside the liquid pool. Average entrained air fraction increases with increase in inlet flow rate and decreases with increase in free surface height.