AiringressbenchmarkingwithcomputationalfluiddynamicsanalysisOriginalResearchArticle

Theairingressaccidentisacomplicatedaccidentscenariothatmaylimitthedeploymentofhigh-temperaturegasreactors.Thecomplexityofthisaccidentscenarioiscompoundedbymultiplephysicalphenomenathatareinvolvedintheairingressevent.Theseincludediffusion,naturalcirculation,andcomplexchemicalreactionswithgraphiteandoxygen.Inanattempttobetterunderstandthephenomenon,theFLUENT-6computationalfluiddynamicscodewasusedtoassesstwoairingressexperiments.ThefirstwastheJapaneseseriesoftestsperformedintheearly1990sbyTakedaandHishida.Theseseparateeffectstestswereconductedtounderstandandmodelamulti-componentexperimentinwhichallthreeprocesseswereincludedwiththeintroductionofairinaheatedgraphitecolumn.MITusedtheFLUENTcodetobenchmarktheseseriesoftestswithquitegoodresults.Thesetestsaregenericallyapplicabletoprismaticreactorsandthelowerreflectorregionsofpebble-bedreactors.ThesecondseriesoftestswereperformedattheNACOKfacilityforpebblebedreactorsasreportedbyKuhlmann[Kuhlmann,M.B.,1999.Experimentstoinvestigateflowtransferandgraphitecorrosionincaseofairingressaccidentsinahigh-temperaturereactor].Thesetestswereaimedatunderstandingnaturalcirculationofpebblebedreactorsbysimulatinghotandcoldlegsofthesereactors.TheFLUENTcodewasalsosuccessfullyusedtosimulatethesetests.Theresultsofthesebenchmarksandthefindingswillbepresented.