Thermal Sizing Analysis for a Copper Bonded Steam Generator in LMR

In this study, a one-dimensional thermal-hydraulic analysis computer model was developed for the thermal sizing of a copper bonded steam generator. It was assumed that the conduction heat transfer of the copper region between the hot side and cold side tubes is one-dimensional, and the thermal resistance of the copper region was derived as a function of tube pitch to diameter ratio. The flow region of the water/steam sides was divided into four sub-regions, which were sub-cooled, saturated nucleate boiling, film boiling, and super-heated regions. The number of tubes selected was from 280 to 3500 for the parametric study calculation. The ratios of pitch to tube diameter were 1.4, 1.6 and 1.8. The calculation results showed that when the number of tubes is 3000, the required length of heating tube is about 12.9 m and the diameter of the steam generator is about 3.2 m. If the P/D ratio increases, the thermal resistance of the copper region also increases, but the length of the heating tube does not increase so much. The developed program can be used for the examination of a conceptual design for the copper bonded steam generator, which is one of the candidates for an IHTS (Intermediate Heat Transport System) simplification concept.