Study on the Turbulent Mixed Convection Phenomena Inside the Air-Cooled RCCS Riser

Abstract

High Temperature Gas cooled Reactor (HTGR) that is one of GEN-IV reactor types enhances its safety adopting a passive cooling system, Reactor Cavity Cooling System (RCCS). When the active cooling system for the reactor core in a HTGR doesn’t work, the decay heat from the reactor core is transferred to the reactor vessel and the concrete wall of the reactor cavity, which are cooled by the RCCS. The RCCS consists of the vertical rectangular ducts, called risers, surrounding reactor vessel at a certain distance and chimneys that are connected to risers. Risers receiving the decay heat from the reactor vessel, the air inside the riser is heated and flows up to the chimney which accelerates exhalation of the air to the external atmosphere. The RCCS performance depends on the heat transfer rate inside the riser ducts, but the turbulent mixed convection that may occur in the riser ducts can complicate the verification. In this study, an experimental facility had been constructed to investigate heat transfer phenomena inside a riser duct and experiments with various heat flux and flow rate conditions were carried out. The experimental results showed that the turbulent mixed convection occurred for certain experimental conditions in the riser duct, which leads to heat transfer deterioration. Therefore, a correlation was suggested to predict how much the heat transfer could decrease compared to the forced convection. Large eddy simulation was carried out for CFD analysis. The heat transfer coefficients from LES showed consistent results with the correlation. The unique velocity profile and secondary flow was observed when the heat transfer was deteriorated. This study will contribute to the evaluation of the RCCS performance.