Buoyancy driven turbulent flow and experimental validation at the VeMix test facility

Buoyancy driven flow is often presented in many engineering application such as mixing process of fluids with different density. The aim of our study is to simulate mixing processes that are relevant in safety analyses of nuclear reactors. The boron dilution problem is one such safety analysis issue.
Borated and unborated water are of different densities and may be of different temperatures, what causes additional density differences. The degree of mixing of low and high borated coolant is a critical issue with respect to reactivity insertion into the reactor core.
As nuclear reactor geometries are complex, the mixing process not widely understood and the influence of the buoyancy is small, a VeMix (Vertical Mixing) test facility was chosen for validation of numerical models of the mixing process. The experimental data was taken from the optical method and surface wire mesh method.