Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : The 27th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (ICONE27)
Date : May 19, 2019 - May 24, 2019
In order to investigate the mechanisms of steam explosion which may occur during a severe accident of light water reactors (LWRs), the MISTEE facility was developed at Royal Institute Technology (KTH) to visualize the micro interactions of steam explosion when a single molten droplet was falling into a water pool. For preparation of a molten droplet, an aerodynamic levitation system was proposed to prevent the droplet from falling out of the crucible during heating in an induction furnace by injecting argon gas through a purging line connected to the bottom nozzle of the crucible. To support the design of such levitation system, a numerical simulation of the aerodynamic levitation system was performed using the CFD code ANASYS FLUENT v16.2. The problem was simplified as adiabatic two-phase flow dynamics in a 2-D axisymmetric geometry. The VOF method is employed to track the interface of two phases (liquid metal and argon gas), and the SST k-omega model was chosen for turbulence. Various characteristics of droplet dynamics in incorporated with argon gas flowrates through the crucible were examined in the numerical simulation. The simulation results suggested there exists an optimal range of argon gas flowrate for levitating a coherent shape of droplet in the crucible. The wall adhesion had a considerable effect on initiating the levitation of the droplet, which means the properties of the inside surface of the crucible may play an important role in the levitation and discharge of the droplet. Proof-of-concept tests were carried out on the prototype of the design, and it was confirmed that the levitation system was able to fulfill its function, i.e., to keep the droplet in the crucible during its melting process, although the actual argon gas flowrates for levitation was higher than the predicted ones, probably due to the leakage of flow path and heat transfer which were not considered in the simulation. Generally speaking, the numerical simulation did not only help understand the hydrodynamic characteristics of the levitation system, but also provided insights on operational control and improvement of the system.
