SummaryWith the University of Idaho, Ohio State University and Clarksean Associates, this research program has the long-term goal to develop reliable predictive techniques for the energy, mass and momentum transfer plus chemical reactions in drying / passivation (surface oxidation) operations in the transfer and storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from wet to dry storage. Such techniques are needed to assist in design of future transfer and storage systems, prediction of the performance of existing and proposed systems and safety (re)evaluation of systems as necessary at later dates.Many fuel element geometries and configurations are accommodated in the storage of spent nuclear fuel. Consequently, there is no one generic fuel element / assembly, storage basket or canister and, therefore, no single generic fuel storage configuration. One can, however, identify generic flow phenomena or processes which may be present during drying or passivation in SNF canisters. The objective of the INEEL tasks was to obtain fundamental measurements of these flow processes in appropriate parameter ranges.With the University of Idaho, an idealization of a combined drying and passivation approach has been defined in order to investigate the generic flow processes. This simulation includes flow phenomena that occur in canisters for high-enrichment and medium-enrichment fuels, where fuel element spacing in the canister is increased as compared with low enrichment fuel. Canister diameter was taken as 46 cm (18 in.) and a single basket of about 1.3 meters (4 ft.) length was considered. A long central tube ("dip tube") served as the inlet as in one earlier concept for a passivation process; while this concept apparently has not yet been selected for application, it provides an excellent example of the coupled, complex phenomena which may be present in canister flows. Suggested design flow rates for this hypothesized application indicate that the Reynolds number in the inlet tube would be expected to be between 2500 and 5000, i.e., relatively low.The local distributions of convective mass transfer characteristics (drying/passivation) are expected to depend on the freestream turbulence in the flow around stored fuel elements. The magnitudes of this turbulence depend on the turbulence distributions on the upstream side of the perforated basket support plate ("inlet plenum") and, in turn, in the impinging jet and in the inlet tube. This information can assist engineers in understanding variations of surface drying and passivation through an array and approaches to modify designs to counter non-uniformities and to improve iii distribution, as well as providing bases for assessment of computational fluid dynamics codes proposed for the purpose.A water-flow experiment with a 3/4-scale model (relative to the idealized canister) has been used for overall flow visualization and velocity measurements, with and without an array of simulated fuel elements. Observations have been made with perforated plates (representing basket support plates) having...

The objective of the present report is to document the design of our first experiment to measure generic flow phenomena expected to occur in the lower plenum of a typical prismatic VHTR (Very High Temperature Reactor) concept. In the process, fabrication sketches are provided for the use of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) analysts wishing to employ the data for assessment of their proposed codes. The general approach of the project is to develop new benchmark experiments for assessment in parallel with CFD and coupled CFD/systems code calculations for the same geometry. One aspect of the complex flow in a prismatic VHTR is being addressed: flow and thermal mixing in the lower plenum ("hot streaking" issue). Current prismatic VHTR concepts were examined to identify their proposed flow conditions and geometries over the range from normal operation to decay heat removal in a pressurized cooldown. Approximate analyses were applied to determine key non-dimensional parameters and their magnitudes over this operating range. The flow in the lower plenum can locally be considered to be a situation of multiple jets into a confined crossflow --with obstructions. Flow is expected to be turbulent with momentum-dominated turbulent jets entering; buoyancy influences are estimated to be negligible in normal full power operation. Experiments are needed for the combined features of the lower plenum flows. Missing from the typical jet experiments available are interactions with nearby circular posts and with vertical posts in the vicinity of vertical walls -with near stagnant surroundings at one extreme and significant crossflow at the other.Unheated MIR (Matched-Index-of-Refraction) experiments are first steps when the geometry is complicated. One does not want to use a computational technique which will not even handle constant properties properly. The purpose of the fluid dynamics experiments is to develop benchmark databases for the assessment of CFD solutions of the momentum equations, scalar mixing and turbulence models for typical VHTR plenum geometries in the limiting case of negligible buoyancy and constant fluid properties. As indicated by the scaling studies, in normal full power operation of a typical VHTR conceptual design, buoyancy influences should be negligible in the lower plenum. The MIR experiment will simulate flow features of the paths of jets as they mix in flowing through the array of posts in a lower plenum en route to the single exit duct. The conceptual design for such an experiment is described and the development of the final apparatus is presented. Fabrication sketches are provided in Appendix A for the use of CFD analysts wishing to employ the data for assessment of their proposed codes. iv v

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