Realistic CFD simulation of HTR-10 reactor using a face centred cubic column

摘要

High-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) have the potential to be used as possible energy generation sources in the near future, owing to their inherently safe performance, low power density design, and high conversion efficiency. However, safety is the most important issue for its commercialisation in the nuclear energy industry. The research of the thermal-hydraulic characteristics is very important for safe design and operation of an HTGR. In this article, the thermal-hydraulic simulation of compressible flow inside the core of the pebble bed reactor HTR-10 (High Temperature Reactor) using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is described. The realistic approach was considered, where every closely packed pebble is realistically modelled considering a graphite layer and sphere of fuel. Owing to the high computational cost it is impossible to simulate the full core; therefore, the geometry used is an FCC (Face Centred Cubic) cell with the total height of the core, with 41 layers of pebbles and 82 full pebbles. The input data used were taken from the thermal-hydraulic IAEA Benchmark. The results show the profiles of temperature of the coolant in the core, and the temperature distribution inside the pebbles. The maximum temperatures in the pebbles do not exceed the allowable limit for this type of nuclear fuel. The obtained results are consistent with the results of other authors using other simulation techniques and models.