Investigation of computational model for the natural circulation at dual channel facility

Abstract

The current work investigates a computational model to study the thermal and hydraulic air behavior during the natural circulation at air ingression and accidents. This is done with the RHYS coupling ASYST VER 4 package. The test facility considered for the present study is a dual vertical channel facility comprised of two parallel channels connected to the upper and lower plenum. The flow fields in the heated and cooled channels were comprehensively characterized by analyzing axial temperature and velocity distributions using varied uniform iso-flux (100–1400 W/m²) and different outer surface temperatures (278, 288, 298, and 308 K). Temperature and velocity reversal recorded after maximal spots due to natural convection. The temperature rise from 278 to 308 K gave an average of 25.51 and 25.19° increase in air and inner wall temperatures, respectively, while air velocity increases at high cooling intensity (278 K) within the heated channel, in the cooled channel, low cooling intensity (308 K) resulted in higher velocity. The convective heat transfer is represented in terms of heat transfer coefficients, which are used to compute the Nusselt number. Additionally, the ASYST model was validated with data from literature sources, indicating strong agreement.