Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis of Reactor Systems

• Published in: Nuclear Reactor pp. 1 - 3
• Main Author: Lee, John C
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons 2020; John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated; John Wiley & Sons, Inc
• Subjects: axial temperature distribution; boiling heat transfer; channel flow; Electrical & Power Engineering; Electrical Safety; fluid conservation equations; momentum transport; nuclear reactor; thermal‐hydraulic analysis
• ISBN: 9781119582328; 1119582326
• DOI: 10.1002/9781119582342.ch13

This chapter shows how to derive general thermal‐hydraulics equations representing the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy, and discusses how they can be used to determine distributions of fuel and coolant temperatures in nuclear reactor cores. It overviews empirical relations governing fluid flow and energy transfer, followed by the derivation of general conservation equations for fluid flow. Sample solutions of the fluid conservation equations for idealized conditions are presented. The general conservation equations are simplified for the case of channel flow, characteristic of fluid flow in reactor coolant channels or feedwater flow in steam generators. The channel flow model is then used to determine axial fuel and coolant temperature distributions in reactor coolant channels. The chapter also discusses hot channel factors that characterize the limiting heat flux and power distributions in a reactor core. Extension of the fluid conservation equations to handle two‐phase flow and boiling heat transfer are also presented.