Kenichi Tezuka

CFD Simulations and Experiments of Flow Fluctuations Around a Steam Control Valve

Under certain opening conditions (partial opening) of a steam control valve, the piping system in a power plant occasionally experiences large vibrations. To understand the valve instability that is responsible for such vibrations, detailed experiments and CFD calculations were performed. As a result of these investigations, it was found that under the middle-opening (partial opening) condition, a complex three-dimensional (3D) flow structure (valve-attached flow) sets up in the valve region leading to a high pressure region on a part of the valve body. As this region rotates circumferentially, it causes a cyclic asymmetric side load on the valve body, which is considered to be the cause of the vibrations.

Assessment of Effects of Pipe Surface Roughness and Pipe Elbows on the Accuracy of Meter Factors Using the Ultrasonic Pulse Doppler Method

The velocity profile of the flow in a pipe and its influence on the profile factor used with conventional flow meters were investigated with ultrasonic pulse Doppler measurements. From the measured velocity profiles, the influences of surface roughness and Reynolds number were characterized qualitatively and quantitatively. As pipe surface roughness changes during plant operation, the velocity profile changes, producing a change in the profile factor. Variation in the Reynolds number also influences the change in the profile factor. Experiments were conducted at high temperature and pressure to evaluate the ultrasonic pulse Doppler method for measuring the flow of nuclear plant cooling water. Helium gas bubbles provided sufficiently persistent ultrasonic reflectors when injected into high-pressure water, permitting the velocity profile of the flow to be obtained under high-temperature and high-pressure conditions using this method.

Analysis of Ultrasound Propagation in High-Temperature Nuclear Reactor Feedwater to Investigate a Clamp-on Ultrasonic Pulse Doppler Flowmeter

The flow rate of nuclear reactor feedwater is an important factor in the operation of a nuclear power reactor. Venturi nozzles are widely used to measure the flow rate. Other types of flowmeters have been proposed to improve measurement accuracy and permit the flow rate and reactor power to be increased. The ultrasonic pulse Doppler system is expected to be a candidate method because it can measure the flow profile across the pipe cross section, which changes with time. For accurate estimation of the flow velocity, the incidence angle of ultrasound entering the fluid should be estimatedusing Snells law. However, evaluation of the ultrasound propagation is not straightforward, especially for a high-temperature pipe with a clamp-on ultrasonic Doppler flowmeter. The ultrasound beam path may differ from what is expected fromSnells law due to the temperature gradient in the wedge and variation in the acoustic impedance between interfaces. Recently, simulation code for ultrasound propagation has come into use in the nuclear field for nondestructive testing. This article analyzes and discusses ultrasound propagation, using 3D-FEM simulation code plus the Kirchhoff method, as it relates to flow profile measurement in nuclear reactor feed-water with the ultrasonic pulse Doppler system.

Flow Induced Vibration of a Steam Control Valve in Middle-Opening Condition

In some cases, a steam control valve in a power plant causes a large vibration of the piping system under partial valve opening. For rationalization of maintenance and management of a plant, it is favorable to optimize the valve geometry to prevent such vibration. However, it is difficult to understand the flow characteristics in detail only from experiments because the flow around a valve has a complex 3D structure and becomes supersonic (M>1). Therefore, it is useful to combine experiments and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) for the clarification of the cause of vibration and optimization of valve geometry. In previous researches involving experiment and CFD calculation using “MATIS” code, we found that an asymmetric flow attached to the valve body (named “valve-attached flow”) occurs and pressure increases where the valve-attached flow collides with the flow from the opposite side under the middle opening condition. This high-pressure region rotates circumferentially (named “rotating pressure fluctuation”) and causes cyclic side load on the valve body. However, because we assumed the valve support is rigid, we cannot clarify the interaction between the rotating pressure fluctuation and the valve vibration when the valve stiffness is small. Thus, in this paper, we conducted flow-induced vibration experiments on a valve with a very weak support and investigated the characteristics of the vibration mode under the middle-opening condition. As a result, under the specific lift condition of the region where rotating pressure fluctuation occurs, lock-in phenomena between the rotating pressure fluctuation and the valve vibration occur and large-amplitude vibration can be seen.Copyright

Study on the Optimal Number of Transducers for Pipe Flow Rate Measurement Downstream of a Single Elbow Using the Ultrasonic Velocity Profile Method

This paper presents a new estimation method to determine the optimal number of transducers using an Ultrasonic Velocity Profile (UVP) for accurate flow rate measurement downstream of a single elbow. Since UVP can measure velocity profiles over a pipe diameter and calculate the flow rate by integrating these velocity profiles, it is also expected to obtain an accurate flow rate using multiple transducers under nondeveloped flow conditions formed downstream of an elbow. The new estimation method employs a wave number of velocity profile fluctuations along a circle on a pipe cross-section using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). The optimal number of transducers is estimated based on the sampling theorem. To evaluate this method, a preliminary experiment and numerical simulations using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) are conducted. The evaluating regions of velocity profiles are located at 3 times of a pipe diameter () for the experiment, and 1 and for the simulations downstream of an elbow, respectively. Reynolds numbers for the experiment and simulations are set at and , respectively. These results indicate the efficiency of this new method.

Effects of Inner Surface Roughness and Asymmetric Pipe Flow on Accuracy of Profile Factor for Ultrasonic Flow Meter

Flow profile factors (PFs), which adjust measurand to real flow rates, also strongly depend on flow profiles. To determine profile factors for actual power plants, manufactures of flowmeters usually conduct factory calibration tests under ambient flow conditions. Indeed, flow measurements with high accuracy for reactor feedwater require them to conduct calibration tests under real conditions, such as liquid conditions and piping layouts. On the contrary, as nuclear power plants are highly aging, readings of flowmeters for reactor feedwater systems drift due to the changes of flow profiles. The causes of those deviations are affected by the change of wall roughness of inner surface of pipings. We have conducted experiments to quantify the effects of flow patterns on the PFs due to pipe roughness and asymmetric flow, and the results of our experiments have shown the effects of elbows and pipe inner roughness, which strongly affect to the creation of the flow patterns. Those changes of flow patterns lead to large errors in measurements with transit time (time-of-flight: TOF) ultrasonic flow meters. In those experiments, changes of pipe roughness result in the changes of PFs with certain errors. Therefore, we must take into account those effects in order to measure the flow rates of feedwater with better accuracy in actual power plants.Copyright

Effect of low-frequency ultrasound on flow rate measurements using the ultrasonic velocity profile method

This study presents a low-frequency ultrasonic propagation analysis using the finite-element method (FEM). Experimental results of flow rate measurements using the ultrasonic velocity profile (UVP) method are also presented. The ultrasound frequency, pipe diameter, and pipe wall thickness are 0.274 MHz, 590.6 mm, and 9.5 mm, respectively. Six waves are generated per ultrasound pulse. To analyze the entire pipe region, the FEM is combined with the Kirchhoff method. The experiments of flow rate measurements are conducted using the high Reynolds number calibration facility at the National Metrology Institute of Japan. The range of the Reynolds number is from 4.4×106 to 1.7×107. Wide spreading of the ultrasonic beam in the axial direction of the pipe is observed because of multiple reflections in the pipe wall. This wide beam affects the measured velocity profile, particularly in the region near the pipe wall. In addition, the flow rate errors are approximately 10% (deviating by 1.1%) across the investigated range of Reynolds number. This result suggests that the experimental flow rate errors might be used as correction factors of flow rate measurements using the UVP method.

A Two-Dimensional Study of Transonic Flow Characteristics in Steam Control Valve for Power Plant

A steam control valve is used to control the flow from the steam generator to the steam turbine in thermal and nuclear power plants. During startup and shutdown of the plant, the steam control valve is operated under a partial flow conditions. In such conditions, the valve opening is small and the pressure deference across the valve is large. As a result, the flow downstream of the valve is composed of separated unsteady transonic jets. Such flow patterns often cause undesirable large unsteady fluid force on the valve head and downstream pipe system. In the present study, various flow patterns are investigated in order to understand the characteristics of the unsteady flow around the valve. Experiments are carried out with simplified two-dimensional valve models. Two-dimensional unsteady flow simulations are conducted in order to understand the experimental results in detail. Scale effects on the flow characteristics are also examined. Results show three types of oscillating flow pattern and three types of static flow patterns.

Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Flow Induced Vibration of Steam Control Valve

Control valves of the main steam flow for power plants are operated under wide range of valve openings and pressure ratios. In the present paper, experimental and numerical investigations are described in order to clarify mechanisms of the valve head vibration. Experiments are conducted with two types of the valve head support. One is a flexible support and the other one is with an exciter. Results show that valve head vibrations with large amplitude appear with the flexibly supported valve head under certain range of valve openings and the pressure ratio. With the valve head exciter, dynamic fluid forces are measured. Results show that the added damping force becomes negative around the condition where the valve head oscillation is observed with flexible support. Numerical analyses are carried out in order to observe the flow field. In the simulations, forced vibrations of valve head are assumed. Results show that the pressure distribution on the valve head surface changes depending on the excitation frequencies, and as a result, the negative damping force occurs.Copyright

Effects of Lower Plenum Flow Structure on Core Inlet Flow of ABWR

One of the strategies of cost reduction of nuclear power generation is increase of power outputs. In order to achieve increase of power outputs of a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR), it is extremely important to evaluate coolant flow in a lower plenum of a BWR. Although the simulation by a CFD code is helpful to predict the coolant flow in a lower plenum, experimental data to verify the simulation results are not enough, and the simulation results considerably depends on models. Hence, the present study is focusing on the establishment of the benchmark of CFD code by using the visualization method in a lower plenum. The objective of the present study is to clarify the flow structure of a lower plenum in detail, and to investigate effects of complicated flow structure of lower plenum on core inlet flow. We constructed a 1/10 model of a lower plenum to measure velocity profiles with LDV and PIV. And differential pressure of the lower plenum was measured with differential pressure instrument. In the experiment, it turned out that flow structure of the lower plenum vary depending on experimental condition.