Design of a Discharge Header and a Working Platform for a Research Reactor With a CFD Model

Abstract

Most research reactors are designed as an open-pool type and the reactor is located on the bottom of the open-pool. The reactor in the pool is connected to the primary cooling system, which is designed for adequate cooling of the heat generated from the reactor core. One of the characteristics of an open-pool type research reactor is that the primary coolant after passing through the reactor core and the primary cooling system (PCS) is returned to the reactor pool. Because the primary coolant contains many kinds of radionuclides, the research reactor should be designed to protect the radionuclides from being released outside the pool by a stratified stable water layer, which is formed between a hot water layer and cold water near the reactor and prevents the natural circulation of water in the pool. In this study, additional components such as a discharge header and a working platform inside the pool were developed to help diminish the radiation level to the pool top. To discharge coolant stably inside the reactor pool, a discharge header was installed at the end of the pool inlet pipe. Many holes were made in the discharge header to discharge the coolant slowly and minimize the disturbance of the hot water layer by the flow inside the pool. The working platform was also equipped inside the reactor pool to remove the convective flow near the pool top. The commercially available CFD code, ANSYS CFD-FLEUNT, was used to specifically design the discharge header and working platform for satisfying the requirement of the pool top radiation level. The computations were conducted to analyze the flow and temperature characteristics inside the pool for several geometries using an SST k-ω turbulent model and cell modeling, which were conducted to isolate the root cause of these differences and the given inlet conditions. The discharge header and working platform were designed using the CFD results.