Simulation of steam/air leakage through small-scale cracked concrete specimen

Abstract

At the Material Testing and Research Institute (MPA Karlsruhe) leakage experiments with concrete specimens containing a single penetrating crack were performed on behalf of GRS. The specimens had a prismatic shape and the dimensions 4.0 cm × 4.0 cm × 11.0 cm. The crack width was adjustable and ranged from 0.05 mm to 0.25 mm in the experiments. On top of the leakage measurement two sets of additional measurements were performed. In leakage experiments with air at room temperature the exit velocity of the leakage flow was measured with a hot-wire anemometer. The measured velocities were compared to the velocities calculated by leakage rate formulas. The formulas compare well to measurement results. Differences depend greatly on the crack width and the respective assumptions on the friction coefficient proposed by the authors. In a second set of experiments, hot air and hot steam/air mixtures were used. At the beginning of the experiment the specimen had room temperature; due to heat transfer from the leaking fluid to the specimen and the thermal expansion of the specimen, the crack width was reduced, and the leakage rate significantly decreased. The leakage process including fluid-structure interaction was simulated using the coupling of the thermal-hydraulic system code ATHLET, which has been developed and validated by GRS, and the structure mechanical finite element code ANSYS Mechanical.