Flow mixing inside a control-rod guide tube – Experimental tests and CFD simulations

This paper covers a combined experimental and computational effort carried out at Vattenfall Research & Development AB in order to study the thermal mixing in the annular region between a top tube and a control-rod stem. The low frequency thermal fluctuations in this region can result in problems with thermal fatigue and have caused cracks in the control-rod stems of several nuclear reactors (Kobayashi et al., 2009; Tinoco et al., 2009). ow in the vertical annular region formed by the top tube and the control-rod stem is characterized by the mixing of hot bypass flow with cold crud-removal flow. The crud-removal flow is flowing upwards along the control-rod stem, and the warmer bypass flow is entering through eight horizontal holes positioned in the lower part of the guide tube and four holes in the upper part of the top tube, forming jets. ll-scale models of a control rod, including the control-rod stem and the guide tube, were constructed. The first model, designed to work at atmospheric conditions, was made of Plexiglass, in order to be able to visualize the mixing process, whereas the second one was made of steel to allow for a higher temperature difference between the two flows, and the heating of the top tube. mulations of the case at atmospheric conditions were also carried out. he experiments and the simulations showed that the mixing region between the cold crud-removal flow and the warm bypass flow is dominated by large flow structures coming from above. The process is characterized by low frequency, high amplitude temperature fluctuations. The process is basically hydrodynamic, caused by the downward transport of flow structures originated at the upper bypass inlets. The damping thermal effects through buoyancy is of secondary importance, as also the scaling analysis shows, however a slight damping of the temperature fluctuations can be seen due to natural convection due to a pre-heating of the cold crud-removal flow. The comparison between numerical and experimental results shows a rather good agreement, indicating that experiments with plant conditions are not necessary since, through the existing scaling laws and CFD calculations, the obtained results may be extrapolated to plant conditions. oblem of conjugate heat transfer has not yet been addressed experimentally since complex and difficult measurements of the heat transfer have to be carried out. These types of measurements, along with corresponding CFD calculations, constitute one of the main challenges to be dealt with in ongoing work.