Abstract
Understanding the complex dynamic behavior of Underwater Fuel Storage Racks (UFSR) is of prime importance for the safety of nuclear plant facilities. This equipment is submitted to a very strong fluid-structure coupling because of the small layers of fluid surrounding each of its modules. Various studies have been made on this subject. Moreira & Antunes developed a simplified linearized model for the fluid-structure interactions between the modules composing the rack, they estimate the hydrodynamic masses and include a dissipative effect. However, the pressure dissipation in the fluid bifurcation (at the corner of each module) is neglected. This can lead to an overestimation of the coupling between adjacent modules. In this article, we carry on with the average flow velocity method developed by Moreira & Antunes. The focus is on the determination of accurate hydrodynamic masses by including the pressure drops at the corners of each module. This pressure drop is directly linked to the flow distribution at each intersection of the fluid. We have developed an analytical method to determine this flow distribution and then obtain the hydrodynamic added masses.
