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Large-scale PANDA facility – radiation experiments and CFD calculations

  • Ralf Kapulla EMAIL logo , Stephan Kelm , Ulrich Doll , Xiongguo Liu , Sidhart Paranjape and Domenico Paladino
Published/Copyright: March 22, 2024
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Kerntechnik
From the journal Kerntechnik Volume 89 Issue 2

Abstract

CFD modelling of the thermo-hydraulic phenomena in the containment during the various phases of a severe accident necessarily requires consideration of radiative heat transfer – in the presence of steam. These radiative phenomena include (i) energy transfer within the gas mixture and (ii) between the gas and surrounding structures. Preliminary calculations carried out for these types of experiments within the OECD/NEA HYMERES-2 project with the CFD code containmentFOAM using a Monte Carlo solver for thermal radiation, demonstrated that the radiative heat transfer is significant even for very small amounts of vapour in the range of ≈0.1 % to ≈2 %. For this reason, the test matrix was tailored to the two opposite extremes: either gas compositions with a low vapour/steam content, where radiative heat transfer can be neglected, or gas mixtures with higher vapour contents, so that radiative heat transfer plays a dominant role. For the selected experiments of the H2P2 series and the corresponding CFD calculations, a vessel with a diameter of 4 m and a height of 8 m was preconditioned with different air-vapour mixtures (a) at room temperature and (b) elevated temperatures. A stable helium layer was then built-up in the upper part of the vessel. The gas was then compressed by injecting helium from above which resembles with best efforts a compression with a piston in a cylinder. This results in a height-dependent and transient increase of the gas temperature. These experiments and the associated CFD calculations were developed to isolate the phenomena of thermal radiation as good as possible from convective and diffusive effects – within the always present experimental limitations. For the reference experiment with ‘dry conditions’ corresponding to the lowest experimentally possible humidity of ≈0.1 %, we show that the use of a model without radiation provides the best agreement between the experimental and numerical results. For the much higher steam content of ≈60 %, the statistical narrow band correlated-k model (SNBCK), non-gray gas model, is the best candidate for future calculations – with computationally forgivable additional effort. We also provide with the Filtered Rayleigh Scattering technique (FRS) an outlook for a possible future instrumentation approach to better meet the requirements of the CFD community.

Keywords: PANDA; gas radiation heat transfer; gas compression; CFD code validation; containmentFOAM ; Filtered Rayleigh scattering (FRS)
Corresponding author: Ralf Kapulla, Paul Scherrer Institute, Experimental Thermal-Hydraulics Group, Forschungstrasse 111, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland, E-mail:

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Max Fehlmann (25. May 1960; † 30.11.2021) and Simon Suter for their engaged support in conducting these experiments. Without their dedication towards these experiments – even during rather challenging COVID ‘lockdown’ phases – it would not have been possible to obtain the results documented in this article. The authors also would like to thank the members of the Management Board and the Program Review Group of the OECD/NEA HYMERES-2 project for their continued confidence in the perspectives the PANDA experiments can provide; and their help to evaluate the results. In the ongoing OECD/NEA PANDA project, again, one series (P1A2) is dedicated to the radiation topic.

  1. Research ethics: Not applicable.

  2. Author contributions: The authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  3. Competing interests: The authors state no conflicts of interest.

  4. Research funding: None declared.

  5. Data availability: Not applicable.

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Received: 2023-07-26
Accepted: 2024-02-20
Published Online: 2024-03-22
Published in Print: 2024-04-25

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. The 34th German CFD network of competence meeting: numerical 3D simulation of reactor primary cooling circuit and containment flows
  3. The European GO-VIKING project on flow-induced vibrations: overview and current status
  4. CFD simulation on droplet behaviour in post-dryout region
  5. Coupled AC2-CFD simulations for a high-pressure core melt accident scenario
  6. Validation of coupled ATHLET-OpenFOAM simulation on a large-scale single- and two-phase flow experiment
  7. CFD modelling of flashing flows for nuclear safety analysis: possibilities and challenges
  8. Implementation of the preCICE coupling interface for AC2/ATHLET
  9. Large-scale PANDA facility – radiation experiments and CFD calculations
  10. Overview on GRS CFD activities related to containment applications
  11. Calendar of events
https://doi.org/10.1515/kern-2023-0060
Keywords for this article
PANDA; gas radiation heat transfer; gas compression; CFD code validation; containmentFOAM; Filtered Rayleigh scattering (FRS)

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. The 34th German CFD network of competence meeting: numerical 3D simulation of reactor primary cooling circuit and containment flows
  3. The European GO-VIKING project on flow-induced vibrations: overview and current status
  4. CFD simulation on droplet behaviour in post-dryout region
  5. Coupled AC2-CFD simulations for a high-pressure core melt accident scenario
  6. Validation of coupled ATHLET-OpenFOAM simulation on a large-scale single- and two-phase flow experiment
  7. CFD modelling of flashing flows for nuclear safety analysis: possibilities and challenges
  8. Implementation of the preCICE coupling interface for AC2/ATHLET
  9. Large-scale PANDA facility – radiation experiments and CFD calculations
  10. Overview on GRS CFD activities related to containment applications
  11. Calendar of events
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