Assessment of the spacer effects on coolant mixing between adjacent subchannels in PWR fuel assembly

Abstract

This study present a numerical investigation, using a CFD commercial code Star-CCM+, to examine the effects of grid spacers on the coolant streamwise and lateral mixing within the pressurized water reactors (PWRs) rod bundle. A simple design of the spacers is suggested herein, that should be simple enough to reproduce for future CFD benchmark studies but is able to mimic the main physical phenomena found in the real and full-scale assemblies. The flow conditions are of the same order of the APR1400 power plant being commissioned in the UAE. The present numerical study will provide the basis to build, a very much needed and more reliable comparison between the realizable two-layer

Date of Award	Jun 2017
Original language	American English
Supervisor	Yacine Addad (Supervisor)