Construction of the Multipurpose Thermohydraulic Test Facility TOPFLOW using CAD Applications

The Forschungszentrum Rossendorf (FZR) e.V. is building the large-scale test facility TOPFLOW for thermal hydraulic single effect tests. The acronym TOPFLOW stands for Transient Two Phase Flow Test Facility. It will mainly be used for the investigation of generic and applied steady state and transient two phase flow phenomena in power- and process industries. Main research activities are the investigation of:

• transient flow regimes in horizontal, vertical and inclined tubes,
• the dynamic behaviour of interphase areas in gas-liquid flows,
• critical mass flows and oscillations during depressurization of chemical reactors,
• natural convection in large pools with local heating,
• natural convection in parallel channels and feed pipes and
• condensation phenomena.

CAE tools were consequently established for planning and construction of the facility. This includes e.g. in the basic/detail engineering phase pipe and process flow diagrams, three dimensional plot plans and isometric projections for construction. The 3D model of the facility was used for generation of cutaway sectional drawings, determination of connecting points of components, collision checking and generation of reports such as data sheets and part lists. At last the plant model will be used for the documentation of the built isometric projection. From this version a VRML-model will be created. It will be used for presentation in an immersive virtual-reality environment which was developed at FZR. Alternatively the model can be inspected by any web browser with a standard VRML viewer like CosmoPlayer.