Selection of a turbulence model to calculate the temperature profile near the surface of VVER-1000 fuel assemblies in the NPP spent fuel pool

The paper considers the problem of selecting a turbulence model to simulate natural convection near the surface of a VVER-1000 fuel assembly unloaded from the reactor by computational fluid dynamics (CFD simulation) methods. The turbulence model is selected by comparing the calculated data obtained using the Ansys Fluent software package with the results of experimental studies on the natural convection near the surface of a heated vertical plate immersed in water, which simulates the side face of the VVER-1000 fuel assembly in a first approximation. Two-parameter semi-empirical models of turbulence, k-ε and k-ω, are considered as those most commonly used in engineering design. The calculated and experimental data were compared based on the excessive temperature of the plate surface and the water temperature profiles in the turbulent boundary layer for convection modes with a Rayleigh number of 8∙1013 to 3.28∙1014. It has been shown that the best agreement with experimental data, with an average deviation not exceeding ~ 8%, is provided by the RNG k-ε model which is recommended to be used to simulate natural convection near the surface of VVER-1000 FAs in the NPP spent fuel storage pool.