Fundamental Study on Thermo-Hydraulic Phenomena Concerning Passive Safety of Advanced Marine Reactor

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate the thermo-hydraulic behavior of a fluid region confined in a rectangular parallelepiped cavity equipped with a heater and a cooler. The motivation of this study is to clarify a thermal buffer effect for an innovative marine nuclear reactor to realize passive safety. In the present study, experiments were carried out with conditions of laminar convection. Temperature and flow behavior was visualized by the liquid-crystal suspension method, by which the temperature distribution in liquid can be observed as a colored map. Thermal plumes from the heater and the cooler, global natural circulation in the cavity and thermal stratification were observed as elements of the complicated phenomena. Using a code which solves the Navier-Stokes and energy equations, numerical simulations under steady and unsteady condition were carried out to predict the experimental results for two-dimensional, laminar situations, and a good agreement was obtained.