Physical Modeling of Hydrodynamics and Heat Transfer in Liquid-Metal Cooled Fast Reactors

Abstract

The results of the application of the similarity theory of thermophysical processes to the modeling of hydrodynamics and heat transfer in liquid metals in intricately shaped channels and rod systems (reactor cores) as well as the temperature and velocity fields in the top chamber of a fast reactor in different operating regimes are reported. Direct modeling can be used without restrictions only for processes in which the characteristic similarity numbers are functions of only the geometric simplexes of the system and one determining criterion. The presence of two determining criteria, such as, for example, the Reynolds and Prandtl numbers, in the case of heat transfer appreciably complicates the modeling. In the case of three determining criteria, direct modeling is usually unfeasible. In such cases, systematic multivariate experiments must be performed. The task of such experiments is to determine the effects that are allowed by the general mathematical model but are not reproducible, at the current level of mathematical technologies, either analytically or in numerical studies.