The increased demand for the nuclear reactor safety analyses in the recent years have given rise to the rapid development of the methods focusing on the multi-dimensional thermal-hydraulic analyses. These methods have consistently become more complex to take the balance statues and the expected physical events under the temporal reactor conditions into the account. Several software and codes are available to use around the world for making advanced thermal-hydraulic calculations.
Thermal-hydraulic analyses are performed for most of the equipment constituting a nuclear reactor system. The Department of Nuclear Technology carries out these analyses for the steam generators, circulation pumps, passive cooling systems, piping systems, pressurizer, reactor core and containment by using ANSYS-CFD software.
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is the most suitable tool for the complex solutions such as Nuclear Thermal-Hydraulic Systems. However, knowledge and experience is highly required for the proper use of this tool. Creation of the mesh structure, identification of the appropriate boundary conditions, and accurate interpretation of the results is so significant.
The Department of Nuclear Technology can provide CFD calculations listed below for the Nuclear Power Plant systems:
- Steady or transient fluid behaviors,
- Distributions of pressure, velocity and temperature,
- Characteristics of the heat transfers,
- Single or multi-phase flows,
- Radioactive fallout (dispersion) analyses,
- Sub-channel analyses;
- Fuel and cladding temperatures,
- Coolant temperature,
- Flow behavior within the assemblies,
- Thermal-hydraulic analysis of the system components.