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A design study on an aerodynamic levitation system for droplet preparation in steam explosion experiment
KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Physics, Nuclear Power Safety.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3385-8989
KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Physics, Nuclear Power Safety.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9636-9632
KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Physics, Nuclear Power Safety.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0408-8807
KTH, School of Engineering Sciences (SCI), Physics, Nuclear Power Safety.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3132-7252
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2019 (English)In: International Conference on Nuclear Engineering, Proceedings, ICONE, ASME Press, 2019Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

In order to investigate the mechanisms of steam explosion which may occur during a severe accident of light water reactors (LWRs), the MISTEE facility was developed at Royal Institute Technology (KTH) to visualize the micro interactions of steam explosion when a single molten droplet was falling into a water pool. For preparation of a molten droplet, an aerodynamic levitation system was proposed to prevent the droplet from falling out of the crucible during heating in an induction furnace by injecting argon gas through a purging line connected to the bottom nozzle of the crucible. To support the design of such levitation system, a numerical simulation of the aerodynamic levitation system was performed using the CFD code ANASYS FLUENT v16.2. The problem was simplified as adiabatic two-phase flow dynamics in a 2-D axisymmetric geometry. The VOF method is employed to track the interface of two phases (liquid metal and argon gas), and the SST k-omega model was chosen for turbulence. Various characteristics of droplet dynamics in incorporated with argon gas flowrates through the crucible were examined in the numerical simulation. The simulation results suggested there exists an optimal range of argon gas flowrate for levitating a coherent shape of droplet in the crucible. The wall adhesion had a considerable effect on initiating the levitation of the droplet, which means the properties of the inside surface of the crucible may play an important role in the levitation and discharge of the droplet. Proof-of-concept tests were carried out on the prototype of the design, and it was confirmed that the levitation system was able to fulfill its function, i.e., to keep the droplet in the crucible during its melting process, although the actual argon gas flowrates for levitation was higher than the predicted ones, probably due to the leakage of flow path and heat transfer which were not considered in the simulation. Generally speaking, the numerical simulation did not only help understand the hydrodynamic characteristics of the levitation system, but also provided insights on operational control and improvement of the system.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
ASME Press, 2019.
Keywords [en]
Aerodynamic levitation, Experimental technique, Numerical simulation, Steam explosion
National Category
Energy Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-281409Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85071364483OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-281409DiVA, id: diva2:1468856
Conference
27th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering: Nuclear Power Saves the World!, ICONE 2019; Tsukuba International Congress Center, Tsukuba, Ibaraki; Japan; 19 May 2019 through 24 May 2019
Note

QC 20200918

Part of ISBN 9784888983051

Available from: 2020-09-18 Created: 2020-09-18 Last updated: 2024-10-15Bibliographically approved

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Guo, QiangManickam, LouisYu, PengVillanueva, WalterMa, Weimin

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