Abstract
Numerical analysis of the thermohydraulic behavior of the innovative flexible fast spectrum research
reactor, MYRRHA, under design by the Belgian Nuclear Research Center (SCKCEN) is a very challenging
task. The primary coolant of the reactor is Lead Bismuth Eutectic, LBE, which is an opaque heavy liquid
metal with low Prandtl number. The simulation tool needs to involve many complex physical phenomena
to be able to predict accurately the flow and thermal field in the pool type reactor.
In the past few years, within the frame of a collaboration between SCKCEN and the von Karman
Institute, a new platform, MyrrhaFoam, was developed based on the open source simulation environment,
OpenFOAM. The current tool can deal with incompressible buoyancy corrected steady/unsteady
single phase flows. It takes into account conjugate heat transfer in the solid parts which is mandatory
due to the expected high temperature gradients between the different parts of the reactor. The temperature
dependent properties of LBE are also considered. MyrrhaFoam is supplemented with the most relevant
thermal turbulence models for low Prandtl number liquids up to date.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 256-265 |
Journal | Nuclear Engineering and Design |
Volume | 312 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 3 Jun 2016 |