Luo Yu-shan

Stability analysis of a square rod bundle sub-channel in supercritical water reactor

Extensive investigations on the flow and heat transfer behavior in SCWR fuel assembly have been undertaken worldwide. However, stability analysis of supercritical water in the sub-channels of tight lattices is still lacking. In this paper, the flow stability of a fuel bundle channel with square pitches has been analyzed using commercial CFD code-ANSYS Fluent. Typical dynamic instability of Density Wave Oscillation (DWO) has occurred in heated channel containing fluids at supercritical pressure. A further discussion about the impacts of various operational parameters (e.g. power input, system pressure, mass velocity, inlet temperature, etc) shows that the system becomes more stable as system pressure and/or mass flow rate increases. An increase in inlet temperature also has a stabilizing effect on the system.