Publications Repository - Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

1 Publication

Experimental Study of a Simplified 3 x 3 Rod Bundle using DPTV

Dominguez-Ontiveros, E. E.; Hassan, Y. A.; Franz, R.; Barthel, F.; Hampel, U.

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has evolved in the last years as an important tool for the simulation and prediction of rod bundles in plant components under various scenarios, contributing to the continuing improve of performance and safety of nuclear power plants. However, these tools must be validated and verified in order to assure with enough confidence the reliability and quality of CFD predictions. The present work focuses in the basic study and a benchmark case of rod bundles using a top-bench experimental set up. The setup consist of a 3 x 3 rod bundle with a rod diameter of d= 10 mm, length L=1078 mm, and pitch to diameter ratio P/d = 1.28. The rods are kept in fixed distance from each other by three in-house designed simple grids with no mixing devices. The experimental set-up provides complete optical access to the test section by using a matching refractive index between the liquid flow, rods and flow envelope. Dynamic Particle Tracking Velocimetry (DPTV) was used to measure the time resolved velocity fields in the rod bundle. Experimental turbulence parameters and main flow characteristics are presented in this work. The interaction between sub-channels due to cross flow will be presented under Re number ranging from 5000- 20,000. This study seeks to provide a basic yet enough comprehensive benchmark case for CFD under single phase conditions. The geometry associated with the bundle problem has been simplified in order to provide high quality data with temporal and spatial resolution able to compare directly with CFD results. The measurement uncertainties in these experiments are discussed and evaluated yielding a 6% uncertainty in the axial and lateral velocity components and up-to 11% in the normal component of the measured velocity vectors. This work is a collaborative effort between Texas A&M University and the HZR institute in Germany.

Keywords: 3 x 3 rod bundle; Dynamic Particle Tracking Velocimetry; Channel geometry; single phase flow; refractive index matching fluid

  • Lecture (Conference)
    The Experimental Validation and Application of CFD and CMFD Codes in Nuclear Reactor Technology / CFD4NRS-4, 10.-12.09.2012, Daejeon, Korea

Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-18376
Publ.-Id: 18376