18 research outputs found
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CFD Analysis of Turbulent Flow Phenomena in the Lower Plenum of a Prismatic Gas-Cooled Reactor
This paper is concerned with the implementation of a computational model of turbulent flow in a section of the lower plenum of Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR). The proposed model has been encoded in a state-of-the-art CFD code, NPHASE. The results of NPHASE predictions have been compared against the experimental data collected using a scaled model of a sub-region in the lower plenum of a modular prismatic gas-cooled reactor. It has been shown that the NPHASE-based model is capable of predicting a three-dimensional velocity field in a complex geometrical configuration of VHTR lower plenum. The current and future validations of computational predictions are necessary for design and analysis of new reactor concepts, as well as for safety analysis and licensing calculations
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Preliminary Study of Turbulent Flow in the Lower Plenum of a Gas-Cooled Reactor
A preliminary study of the turbulent flow in a scaled model of a portion of the lower plenum of a gas-cooled advanced reactor concept has been conducted. The reactor is configured such that hot gases at various temperatures exit the coolant channels in the reactor core, where they empty into a lower plenum and mix together with a crossflow past vertical cylindrical support columns, then exit through an outlet duct. An accurate assessment of the flow behavior will be necessary prior to final design to ensure that material structural limits are not exceeded. In this work, an idealized model was created to mimic a region of the lower plenum for a simplified set of conditions that enabled the flow to be treated as an isothermal, incompressible fluid with constant properties. This is a first step towards assessing complex thermal fluid phenomena in advanced reactor designs. Once such flows can be computed with confidence, heated flows will be examined. Experimental data was obtained using three-dimensional Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) to obtain non-intrusive flow measurements for an unheated geometry. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) predictions of the flow were made using a commercial CFD code and compared to the experimental data. The work presented here is intended to be scoping in nature, since the purpose of this work is to identify improvements that can be made to subsequent computations and experiments. Rigorous validation of computational predictions will eventually be necessary for design and analysis of new reactor concepts, as well as for safety analysis and licensing calculations
Ecological Invasion, Roughened Fronts, and a Competitor's Extreme Advance: Integrating Stochastic Spatial-Growth Models
Both community ecology and conservation biology seek further understanding of
factors governing the advance of an invasive species. We model biological
invasion as an individual-based, stochastic process on a two-dimensional
landscape. An ecologically superior invader and a resident species compete for
space preemptively. Our general model includes the basic contact process and a
variant of the Eden model as special cases. We employ the concept of a
"roughened" front to quantify effects of discreteness and stochasticity on
invasion; we emphasize the probability distribution of the front-runner's
relative position. That is, we analyze the location of the most advanced
invader as the extreme deviation about the front's mean position. We find that
a class of models with different assumptions about neighborhood interactions
exhibit universal characteristics. That is, key features of the invasion
dynamics span a class of models, independently of locally detailed demographic
rules. Our results integrate theories of invasive spatial growth and generate
novel hypotheses linking habitat or landscape size (length of the invading
front) to invasion velocity, and to the relative position of the most advanced
invader.Comment: The original publication is available at
www.springerlink.com/content/8528v8563r7u2742