This paper presents a methodology to assess the effects of crud surface roughnesses on the normal operation of a PWR reactor.

A CFD methodology based on the use of RANS models and the implementation of roughness embedded in STAR-CCM+ CFD code has been developed and applied.

A typical PWR reactor case is investigated in details.

Results show how the presence of crudded rough rods induces a modification of the flow distribution as compared to the ideal case with clean smooth rods.

Notably, these modifications reflect a reduction of the mass flow rate, which in turn has a deteriorating consequence on the efficiency of the fuel-to-coolant heat transfer.

Volume Subject Area:
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Coupled Codes
Topics:
Computational fluid dynamics, Flow (Dynamics), Fuel rods, Pressurized water reactors, Rods, Surface roughness, Coolants, Fuels, Heat transfer, Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations
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