The thermal–hydraulic phenomena in a pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) core have been simulated under steady-state and transient conditions. The PBMR core is basically a long right circular cylinder with a fuel effective height of 11 m and a diameter of 3.7 m. It contains approximately 452,000 fuel pebbles. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model of the PBMR core has been developed to study the influence of porosity on the core performance after reactor shutdown. The developed model was carried out on a personal computer using ANSYS fluent 14.5. Several important heat transfer and fluid flow parameters have been examined under steady-state and transient conditions, including the coolant temperature, effective thermal conductivity of the pebble bed, and the decay heat. Porosity was found to have a significant influence on the coolant temperature, on the effective thermal conductivity of the pebble bed, on the decay heat, and on the required time for heat removal.
Issue Section:
Heat and Mass Transfer
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