Investigation of using a Porous Media Approximation for Flow and Heat Transfer211 through the Nuclear Materials Storage Facility Drywell Array

摘要

The Nuclear Materials Storage Facility (NMSF) is being renovated to provide a211u001esafe and secure long-term facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory to store 211u001enuclear materials. The concept for storage uses vertical tubes that are called 211u001edrywells that have nuclear bearing canisters inside the tubes. The NMSF facility 211u001emay use up to 370 of these tubes containing up to 10 canisters producing 15 W 211u001eeach. Analysts at the Laboratory wish to use CFD computer codes to predict the 211u001eflow and thermal effects of air flow through the facility and the tube array. 211u001eHowever, the complexity and large number of storage tubes precludes modeling the 211u001efacility in enough detail to resolve the boundary layers around each and every 211u001etube. Therefore, certain approximations have to be made. A major approximation 211u001ethat has been used in this modeling effort has been to simulate the array of 211u001etubes as a porous media, The assumption-in the use of porous media is that the 211u001eresistance of the drywells can be accounted for in a general way. The purpose of 211u001ethis study is to evaluate the suitability of the porous media approximation for 211u001emodeling the tube array in the NMSF. In this study we will compare porous media 211u001emodels results with results from models that resolve the boundary layer around 211u001etubes. Finally, we offer a compromise modeling approach to address with this 211u001eproblem.