EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATIONS OF THE COOLANT FLOW IN THE FUEL ASSEMBLY OF THE FISSILE CORE OF THE REACTOR OF A SMALL NUCLEAR POWER PLANT

The results are presented of experimental investigations of the coolant fl ow in a bundle of fuel elements of a fuel assembly of a RITM-type reactor of a small nuclear power plant. The goal of this work is to investigate the redistribution of the fi eld of axial and transverse velocities of the fl ow, and also the axial coolant fl ow downstream of a plate-type spacer grid of a fuel assembly. To achieve the set goal, a number of experiments were conducted in an aerodynamic research stand on a scaled model of a bundle of fuel elements of a fuel assembly with plate-type spacer grids. We selected a region covering a third of the entire cross section of the model and including all standard regular cells and cells adjacent to the casing, the stiff ener angle and the central displacer pipe as a region to be investigated. The coolant fl ow pattern is represented by cartograms of transverse and axial velocity distribution, and also by dependence diagrams of distribution of axial velocities and coolant fl ow rates through characteristic cell types. The experimental results can be used for engineering feasibility demonstration of design solutions in designing RITMtype reactor fi ssile cores. The obtained experimental database on coolant fl ow in cassette-type fuel assemblies can be used for verifi cation of advanced CFD (computational fl uid dynamics) programs (of both foreign and domestic development) and programs of cellwise thermohydraulic calculation of fi ssile cores in proving a reliability of their thermal performance.
   
Author:  S. M. Dmitriev, A. A. Dobrov, D. V. Doronkov, D. S. Doronkova, A. N. Pronin, V. I. Polunichev, A. V. Ryazanov, A. E. Khrobostov
Keywords:  nuclear reactor, cassette fi ssile core, fuel assembly, fuel element, spacer grid, coolant fl uid dynamics, axial velocity, transverse velocity, axial fl ow
Page:  1479