HEAT TRANSFER CHARACTERISTICS OF A NUCLEAR FUEL ROD COOLED IN A SURROUNDING MEDIUM A COMPARITIVE STUDY BETWEEN 1-D & 2-D ANALYSIS

摘要

This paper presents the comparison of the heat transfer characteristics of a two-dimensional model of a nuclear fuel rod cooled in a surrounding medium with those of one- dimensional model. The equations governing the temperature field both for one and two-dimensional models are solved numerically using second order finite difference schemes. Thermal performance characteristics of the two-dimensional model of the fuel rod is obtained for a wide range of aspect ratio Ar, Biot number Bi, and heat generation parameter Q and compared with those of respective one-dimensional model. It is observed that for Ar 7.0, Bi and Q being kept fixed, one-dimensional model prediction is found to be quite satisfactory. Furthermore, for fixed values of Ar and Bi, there exists a limiting value of Q below which one-dimensional model prediction is valid. It is also noticed that for fixed values of Ar and Q and Bi 1.5, one-dimensional model prediction is in fairly good agreement with that of two-dimensional one.