Preliminary Study for Design Core of Nuclear Research Reactor of TRIGA Bandung Using Fuel Element Plate MTR

The nuclear reactor has two types of power reactors based on the function that is used as electrical energy and research reactors and radioisotope used as a producer of nuclear science and technology research. Indonesia has three research reactors are two types of TRIGA research reactor in Bandung with a power of 2 MW and in Yogyakarta with a power of 100 kW and a research reactor in PUSPIPTEK Serpong with nominal power of 30 MW. For the second fuel elements TRIGA type reactor that is currently using elements of cylindrical material, while the fuel elements RSG-GAS reactor in Serpong-shaped plate. Reactor TRIGA Bandung is a reactor that can be used to predict the buffer reactor. However, this reactor has a problem because of the limited number of existing fuel element. Meanwhile, production of TRIGA fuel elements abroad already closed. Given that Indonesia has the ability to produce nuclear fuel elements for research reactors fueled plate it is proposed to modify the reactor core of TRIGA Bandung of the terrace patio made from a cylinder into fuel plates. In this research will be studied more deeply about aspects thermal-hydraulics TRIGA research reactor using fuel elements plate replacement to cylinder fuel element. The method used is the modeling and simulation of the fuel element plate using porous media and non-porous media with the program of CFD Code. Results of the simulation show that the phenomenon of flow and temperature distribution closer to the comparison of the design elements used fuel plate. So later this plate fuel elements can be used in a nuclear reactor core TRIGA research Bandung, Indonesia.The nuclear reactor has two types of power reactors based on the function that is used as electrical energy and research reactors and radioisotope used as a producer of nuclear science and technology research. Indonesia has three research reactors are two types of TRIGA research reactor in Bandung with a power of 2 MW and in Yogyakarta with a power of 100 kW and a research reactor in PUSPIPTEK Serpong with nominal power of 30 MW. For the second fuel elements TRIGA type reactor that is currently using elements of cylindrical material, while the fuel elements RSG-GAS reactor in Serpong-shaped plate. Reactor TRIGA Bandung is a reactor that can be used to predict the buffer reactor. However, this reactor has a problem because of the limited number of existing fuel element. Meanwhile, production of TRIGA fuel elements abroad already closed. Given that Indonesia has the ability to produce nuclear fuel elements for research reactors fueled plate it is proposed to modify the reactor core of TRIGA Bandung of the terrace patio made from a cylinder into fuel plates. In this research will be studied more deeply about aspects thermal-hydraulics TRIGA research reactor using fuel elements plate replacement to cylinder fuel element. The method used is the modeling and simulation of the fuel element plate using porous media and non-porous media with the program of CFD Code. Results of the simulation show that the phenomenon of flow and temperature distribution closer to the comparison of the design elements used fuel plate. So later this plate fuel elements can be used in a nuclear reactor core TRIGA research Bandung, Indonesia

CFD Analysis of Convective Heat Transfer in a Vertical Square Sub-Channel for Laminar Flow Regime

The development of new practices in nuclear research reactor safety aspects and optimization of recent nuclear reactors needs knowledge on forced convective heat transfer within sub-channels formed between several nuclear fuel rods or heat exchanger tubes, not only in the fully developed regime but also in the developing regime or laminar flow regime. The main objective of this research was to find a new correlation equation for calculating the convective heat transfer coefficient in the vertical square sub-channels. Recently, a simulation study was conducted to find a new heat transfer correlation equation for calculating the convective heat transfer coefficient within a vertical square sub-channel in the developing regime or laminar flow regime for Reynolds number range 400 ≤ Re ≤ 1700. Simulations were carried out using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code and modeling already defined in the software. The novelty of the research lies in the analysis of the entrance effect for the sub-channel by proposing a new empirical correlation that can then be inserted into the STAT computer code. The surface temperature distribution around the tangential direction of the active cylinders shows that the implementation of active and dummy cylinders in the current study can simulate sub-channels that exist in a real nuclear reactor core. The current study shows that the flow simulated in this study is in its developing condition (entrance region). A new forced convective heat transfer correlation for the developing region in the form of Nu = 2.094(Gz)0.329 for the Graetz number range 161 ≤ Gz ≤ 2429 was obtained from the current study