Thermal transient finite element computation of a mixing Tee by utilizing CFD results

Abstract

Thermal distribution and fluctuation in any piping component due to turbulent mixing of flows with different temperatures vary greatly. Usually, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools are used for estimation of flows in piping components. Fatigue that results from fluctuating thermal mass flow across the components can be computed by coupling the CFD results with structural mechanics based finite element (FE) results. However, this procedure is laborious and computationally very expensive. A fluid temperature function has been developed in this paper as a function of internal wall coordinates and time by interpolating experimental or CFD results. Bicubic interpolation function has been used for accurate interpolation. Finally, a thermal transient FE analysis for an actual Tee from a nuclear power plant (NPP) was performed by using the developed fluid temperature function and interpolated CFD results.