球床式高温气冷堆球流及球床辐射的理论与实验研究进展

球床堆芯的球流及等效导热系数是直接影响球床式高温气冷堆设计、运行和安全的重要依据,具有重要的意义。清华大学核能与新能源技术研究院近年对球流和球床等效导热系数进行了实验测量、理论研究和数值模拟,全面深入地揭示了球流规律、球流纺及径向内扩散规律、球床几何优化、物性参数影响、球流流态表征及刻画、球床等效导热系数建模等。本文对此进行了回顾总结,并指出了下一步的研究方向。     

高温球床壁面区域有效导热系数模型优化

有效导热系数用来表征高温气冷球床堆堆芯综合传热能力,提高球床有效导热系数的预测精度对于高温气冷球床堆的热工设计和安全分析十分重要。为了优化球床壁面区域有效导热系数模型,本文针对无序石墨球床有效导热系数开展数值研究,分析了无序堆积球床主体区域、近壁面区域以及壁面区域有效导热系数的分布特性。结果表明：壁面区域有效导热系数相对于主体区域和近壁面区域显著降低,其平均降幅约为22%。因此引入了修正系数C_w对ZBS模型在壁面区域进行优化,对于球床主体区域及近壁面区域修正系数C_w=1,对于壁面区域,修正系数C_w=0.78。通过与前期无序球床实验数据和南非HTTU实验数据的对比,验证了优化后的ZBS模型能较好地预测球床壁面区域有效导热系数。     

高温气冷球床堆有效导热系数模型的改进

有效导热系数是高温气冷球床堆热工设计和安全分析程序中的基本参数,ZBS模型广泛应用于球床结构有效导热系数的预测。本文针对ZBS模型中的关键经验型参数——接触面积系数φ进行了分析,通过对不同堆积结构球床有效导热系数的数值分析,获得了12组接触直径比和配位数及其对应的φ值,然后通过多元线性分析获得φ的计算公式。与德国SANA实验结果进行比较,发现改进后的ZBS模型预测能力优于其他模型。改进后的ZBS模型的计算结果与先前实验测量的球床主体区域的有效导热系数吻合也很好。本文研究结果可为高温气冷球床堆的设计和安全分析提供理论支持。     

球床堆燃料元件球放热分布研究

本文主要研究球床堆燃料元件球放热分布规律及其主要影响因素。在雷诺数9600到55000范围内,研究了单球、不完整的菱形球床及完整的菱形球床中球元件的放热分布。认为:单球局部放热的强弱主要受边界层发展过程的支配。球床中,边界层的发展受到死点的限制,元件球的放热主要受气流交混扰动的影响;随着雷诺数的增加,元件球平均放热系数升高,放热不均匀系数下降。不同的球阵布置对元件球放热分布有明显的影响。     

硅酸锂球床传热传质特性与吹扫气体流动的DEM-CFD耦合模拟

氦冷固态增殖包层是中国聚变工程实验堆（CFETR）的3种候选包层概念之一,氚增殖球床是包层的核心部件,采用硅酸锂颗粒作为氚增殖材料。球床结构对氚在球床内的输运行为及流动和传热均有重要影响。本文基于离散单元法（DEM）生成了满足氚增殖球床填充率要求的随机堆积结构,通过CFD计算获取了球床结构下氚在吹扫气体内的等效扩散系数及吹扫气体的流动特性,包括速度分布、压力分布及进出口压降;开展了外加热流及有内热源两种工况下球床等效导热系数的模拟。计算结果表明,球床结构下氚在吹扫气体内的等效扩散系数为二元气体扩散系数的40%;受球床结构影响,球床内存在流动迟滞区,壁面出现流动加速;拟合得到Ergun方程的黏性阻力系数C1=87;有内热源工况下的球床等效导热系数低于外加热流工况下的球床等效导热系数。     

高温气冷堆球床模拟研究

本文描述了漏斗形高温气冷球床堆的模拟计算方法及数据转换情况,克服了原来VSOP程序系统只能将漏斗形堆芯等效成一个圆柱体的局限性,新的程序系统CHTRP可依照实验测得的球流速度曲线剖分几何网格层,对于不同尺寸的反应堆锥体都可进行模拟计算,并作了实例计算,取得了令人满意的结果,为高温堆物理设计和分析提供了有力的工具。     

堆内辐照氚增殖剂球床有效热导率分析

氘-氚聚变反应堆中，固态氚增殖剂包层能不断为聚变反应提供氚核素，是实现聚变反应堆商用的关键技术之一。由锂陶瓷小球堆积形成的球床形式的固态氚增殖剂包层具有比表面积大、产氚效率高等优点，是我国重点发展的氚增殖剂包层形式。氚增殖剂球床须能支撑在堆内辐照时的高温环境，这就要求氚增殖剂球床有较好的导热特性。球床的有效热导率在球床设计和辐照过程中的安全分析十分重要，因此在中国先进研究堆（CARR）开展了氚增殖剂球床在堆内辐照环境下的有效热导率测量实验。根据MCNP计算得出的球床发热功率，结合实验测量的球床温度分布反推得到氚增殖剂球床的有效热导率，并与广泛应用于球床有效热导率计算的改进型ZBS模型计算结果以及堆外实验结果进行对比分析，理论值与实验值能较好吻合。     

球床式高温气冷堆球流混流的影响分析

研究球床式高温气冷堆球流存在的混流对堆芯关键参数的影响。开发了能模拟球流混流过程与效果的MFVSOP程序。选择球床模块式高温气冷堆核电站示范工程(HTR-PM)平衡堆芯为研究对象,对比分析不同的混流程度对堆芯功率峰值、功率密度等参数的影响及其不确定性。分析发现,混流对球床式高温气冷堆关键参数的不确定性影响不大,多次通过的燃料循环方式可降低不确定性。     

球床式高温气冷堆MOX燃料循环优化

与压水堆相比,球床式高温气冷堆能在堆芯结构不做明显改变的情况下采用全堆芯装载混合氧化物（MOX）燃料元件。基于250 MW球床模块式高温气冷堆堆芯结构,设计了4种球床式高温气冷堆下MOX燃料循环方式,包括铀钚混合的燃料球和独立的钚球与铀球混合装载的等效方式,采用高温气冷堆设计程序VSOP进行分析,比较了初装堆的有效增殖因数、燃料元件在堆芯内滞留时间、卸料燃耗、温度系数等主要物理特性。结果表明：采用纯铀和纯钚两种分离燃料球且铀燃料球循环时间更长的方案,平均卸料燃耗较高,总体性能较其他循环方式优越。     

球床堆流动与传热数值模拟

采用离散元方法(DEM)模拟球床反应堆内燃料球的随机分布,通过计算流体力学(CFD)方法研究球床堆内的流动与传热。结果表明:球与球之间的间隙处压力较低;而流速、温度、涡强度较高。沿径向分布,压力、涡强度、换热系数随孔隙率的增加而降低;流速随孔隙率的增加而增加。     

Experimental measurement of effective thermal conductivity of packed lithium-titanate pebble bed

Lithium titanate is a promising solid breeder material for the fusion reactor blanket. Packed lithium titanate pebble bed is considered for the blanket. The thermal energy; that will be produced in the bed during breeding and the radiated heat from the reactor core absorbed must be removed. So, the experimental thermal property data are important for the blanket design. In past, a significant amount of works were conducted to determine the effective thermal conductivity of packed solid breeder pebble bed, in helium atmosphere, but no flow of gas was considered. With increase in gas flow rate, effective thermal conductivity of pebble bed increases. Particle size and void fraction also affect the thermal properties of the bed significantly. An experimental facility with external heat source was designed and installed. Experiments were carried out with lithium-titanate pebbles of different sizes at variable gas flow rates and at different bed wall temperature. It was observed that effective thermal conductivity of pebble bed is a function of particle Reynolds number and temperature. From the experimental data two correlations have been developed to estimate the effective thermal conductivity of packed lithium-titanate pebble bed for different particle Reynolds number and at different temperatures. The experimental details and results are discussed in this paper.     

Effective Thermal Property Estimation of Unitary Pebble Beds Based on a CFD-DEM Coupled Method for a Fusion Blanket

Lithium ceramic pebble beds have been considered in the solid blanket design for fusion reactors.To characterize the fusion solid blanket thermal performance,studies of the effective thermal properties,i.e.the effective thermal conductivity and heat transfer coefficient,of the pebble beds are necessary.In this paper,a 3D computational fluid dynamics discrete element method(CFD-DEM) coupled numerical model was proposed to simulate heat transfer and thereby estimate the effective thermal properties.The DEM was applied to produce a geometric topology of a prototypical blanket pebble bed by directly simulating the contact state of each individual particle using basic interaction laws.Based on this geometric topology,a CFD model was built to analyze the temperature distribution and obtain the effective thermal properties.The current numerical model was shown to be in good agreement with the existing experimental data for effective thermal conductivity available in the literature.     

A Measurement Platform Scheme and Data Post-processing Method for Thermal Conductivity of Li<Subscript>4</Subscript>SiO<Subscript>4</Subscript> Pebble Bed

The effective thermal conductivity of tritium breeder pebble bed is an important thermal parameter and must be known for the thermo-mechanical design of solid tritium breeder blankets. In order to obtain the parameter, experimental measurement is an effective method. A measurement platform was designed by University of Science and Technology of China for CFETR solid blanket scheme to measure the immediate thermal conductivity data and study the effect of pebble bed temperature, the purge gas pressure and pebble deformation on the thermal conductivity of pebble bed. Measurements were performed based on about 1 mm diameter Li₄SiO₄ pebbles in the temperature range between 100 and 800 °C, with purge gas pressure ranging from 0.1 to 0.3 MPa. This paper described a measurement platform scheme by thermal probe method. On the other hand, for the sake of increasing the precision of thermal conductivity data transformed from temperature data, some improvements for the data post-processing using Monte Carlo inversion method were made in this paper too.     

A discrete element method study on the evolution of thermomechanics of a pebble bed experiencing pebble failure

The discrete element method (DEM) is used to study the thermal effects of pebble failure in an ensemble of lithium ceramic spheres. Some pebbles crushing in a large system is unavoidable and this study provides correlations between the extent of pebble failure and the reduction in effective thermal conductivity of the bed. In the model, we homogeneously induced failure and applied nuclear heating until dynamic and thermal steady-state. Conduction between pebbles and from pebbles to the boundary is the only mode of heat transfer presently modeled. The effective thermal conductivity was found to decrease rapidly as a function of the percent of failed pebbles in the bed. It was found that the dominant contributor to the reduction was the drop in inter-particle forces as pebbles fail; implying the extent of failure induced may not occur in real pebble beds. The results are meant to assist designers in the fusion energy community who are planning to use packed beds of ceramic pebbles. The evolution away from experimentally measured thermomechanical properties as pebbles fail is necessary for proper operation of fusion reactors.     

氚增殖剂球床组件堆内辐照物理热工计算分析

为验证在中国先进研究堆(CARR)内进行国际热核聚变实验堆(ITER)氚增殖包层模块(TBM)辐照实验的可行性和安全性,进行了氚增殖剂球床组件堆内辐照物理及热工计算分析。氚增殖剂包层模块主要是固态氚增殖剂陶瓷球床。本文采用Monte Carlo粒子输运模拟程序对氚增殖剂球床进行堆内建模,计算球床的中子注量率、能量沉积和产额,得到不同功率下球床的中子注量率、发热功率和产氚速率以及球床组件引入反应堆的反应性。根据物理计算得到的组件各部件发热情况建立热工计算一维模型,通过更改反应堆功率得到满足实验要求的工况并采用三维程序进行验证。物理与热工计算分析的结果表明,在反应堆运行功率为20 MW的工况下球床组件各部件的温度均不超过限值。     

Thermo-mechanical test rig for experimental evaluation of thermal conductivity of ceramic pebble beds

The experimental determination of mechanical and thermal properties of ceramic pebble beds, such as the lithium orthosilicate or lithium metatitanate, is a key issue in the framework of fusion power technology, for the reason that they are possible candidates in the design of breeder blankets.The paper deals with an experimental method for the evaluation of the thermal conductivity of ceramic pebble beds versus the temperature and compressive strain, based on a steady state heat flux through a material (alumina) of known conductivity. The alumina thermal conductivity is determined by means of the hot wire method. To assess the experimental method, a thermo-mechanical characterization of alumina pebble beds (a material largely available), having different diameters, considering a wide range of temperatures and compression forces has been carried out.Moreover preliminary tests have been performed on lithium orthosilicate and lithium metatitanate pebble beds.