Numerically investigating fire suppression mechanisms for the water mist with various droplet sizes through FDS code

With rapid progress in computer capability recently, it becomes feasible to investigate the sophisticated phenomena related to the fire, especially for the interaction of fire and water spray, by way of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In this paper, a fire simulation CFD code_FDS is used to numerically investigate the different droplet sizes on the fire suppression/extinguishment mechanisms. The CFD models adopted in the FDS are first assessed against the previous experimental work of Kim and Ryou. The droplet size interested is varied from 100 μm to 1000 μm that is located within the droplet size range for a water mist. Based on the sensitivity simulations with different droplet sizes, the dependency of fire extinguishing time on the discharged droplet size can be obtained. The fire extinguishing time decreases with the decreasing droplet size for a mist with relatively fine droplet size since both the evaporation cooling and the oxygen displacement are the dominant mechanisms of fire suppression. However, this trend is reverse for a mist with larger-size droplets for the sake that the direct cooling of flame is the major suppression mechanism. These conclusions are also confirmed by comparing the simulation distributions of gas temperature, oxygen concentration, and steam concentration after the mist actuation and just before the fire extinguishment.     

Experimental and analytical investigation of intermittent flame effect on radiant emission for pool fires

The radiation plays an important role in the fire protection safety of equipments, especially for cable trays in switchgear rooms of a nuclear power plant. Therefore, many research works had been focused on the radiant heat emitted from a fire over the last decades. The radiant heat is essentially emitted from both the persistent and intermittent flames. However, no previous studies had investigated this heat contributed from the intermittent flame. Therefore, experimental and analytical works are proposed in this paper to investigate the effect of intermittent flame on the radiant heat. Based on the experimental measurements for a 30 cm pool fire, at least 36% of total radiant heat is emitted from the intermittent flame, demonstrating the significance of its contribution of the radiant heat. In addition, a new analytical radiant model is also proposed herein, which considers the intermittent flame effect, the flame oscillation characteristics and the smoke contribution. Compared with the experimental data for the pool fires with the diameters of 14–38 cm, the distributions of radiant heat fluxes predicted by the present analytical model show good agreement qualitatively and quantitatively. The relative errors between experiments and predictions are less than about 10%.     

Effect of impact angle and projectile size on sputtering efficiency of solid benzene investigated by molecular dynamics simulations

Molecular dynamics computer simulations have been used to investigate the effect of the cluster size on the sputtering yield dependence on the impact angle. Ar₃₆₆ and Ar₂₉₅₃ cluster projectiles with 14.75 keV of incident energy are directed at the surface of a solid benzene crystal described by a coarse-grained representation at angles between 0° and 70°. It is observed that the shape of the angular dependence of sputtering efficiency is strongly affected by the cluster size. For the Ar₃₆₆ cluster, the sputtering yield only slightly increases with the impact angle, has a broad maximum around 40°, and decreases at larger angles. For the Ar₂₉₅₃ cluster, the yield strongly increases with the impact angle, has a maximum around 45° followed by a steep decrease at larger angles. For both investigated cluster projectiles the primary energy is deposited so close to the surface so that the sputtering efficiency only weekly benefits from the shift of the deposited energy profile toward the surface which occurs at larger impact angles. In this study, molecular dynamics computer simulations are used to probe the effect of the impact angle on the efficiency of ejection molecules emitted from solid benzene by 14.75 keV Ar₃₆₆ and Ar₂₉₅₃ clusters.     

One-dimensional critical heat flux concerning surface orientation and gap size effects

Tests were conducted to examine the critical heat flux (CHF) on a one-dimensional downward heating rectangular channel having a narrow gap by changing the orientation of the copper test heater assembly in a pool of saturated water under atmospheric pressure. The test parameters include both the gap sizes of 1, 2, 5 and 10 mm, and the surface orientation angles from the downward-facing position (180°) to the vertical position (90°), respectively. Also, the CHF experiments were performed for pool boiling with varying heater surface orientations in the unconfined space at atmospheric pressure using the rectangular test section. It was observed that the CHF generally decreases as the surface inclination angle increases and as the gap size decreases. In consistency with several studies reported in the literature, it was found that there exists a transition angle at which the CHF changes with a rapid slope. An engineering correlation is developed for the CHF during natural convective boiling in the inclined, confined rectangular channels with the aid of dimensional analysis. This correlation agrees with the experimental data of this study within ±20%.     

Dynamics of liquid sodium pool spreading under sodium fire conditions

The spreading of burning liquid sodium has been investigated using a depth-averaged shallow water equation for isothermal and non-isothermal (burning) conditions. In the latter case, the spreading is one-way coupled with the flame through a separate energy equation for the pool, with appropriate source terms for radiative and conductive heat transfer from the flame, and a sink term (for the continuity equation) to account for loss due to burning. Pool fires on soil and concrete surface have been considered with appropriate friction and heat transfer terms in the momentum and energy equations, respectively. Using this model, numerical simulations have been carried out for a wide range of leak rates, and for a range of burning rates of liquid sodium. Results obtained from the non-isothermal model show that the non-isothermal effects of liquid sodium spreading can safely be neglected for the case or spreading of burning liquid sodium on a typical ground surface such as concrete or soil. Based on these conclusions, dimensionless correlations are proposed for the prediction of spreading parameters such as, equilibrium pool radius, pool formation time, and for mass inventory under pool fire conditions for liquid sodium. These parameters which are obtained from the spreading code can be specified, as input parameters for the existing sodium fire safety codes.     

A population balance approach considering heat and mass transfer—Experiments and CFD simulations

Bubble condensation in sub-cooled water is a complex process, to which various phenomena contribute. Since the condensation rate depends on the interfacial area density, bubble size distribution changes caused by breakup and coalescence play a crucial role.Experiments on steam bubble condensation in vertical co-current steam/water flows have been carried out in an 8 m long vertical DN200 pipe. Steam is injected into the pipe and the development of the bubbly flow is measured at different distances to the injection using a pair of wire mesh sensors. By varying the steam nozzle diameter the initial bubble size can be influenced. Larger bubbles come along with a lower interfacial area density and therefore condensate slower. Steam pressures between 1 and 6.5 MPa and sub-cooling temperatures from 2 to 12 K were applied. Due to the pressure drop along the pipe, the saturation temperature falls towards the upper pipe end. This affects the sub-cooling temperature and can even cause re-evaporation in the upper part of the test section. The experimental configurations are simulated with the CFD code CFX using an extended MUSIG approach, which includes the bubble shrinking or growth due to condensation or re-evaporation. The development of the vapour phase along the pipe with respect to vapour void fractions and bubble sizes is qualitatively well reproduced in the simulations. For a better quantitative reproduction, reliable models for the heat transfer at high Reynolds number as well as for bubble breakup and coalescence are needed.     

Validation study of computer code for sodium fire safety evaluation of fast reactor

A computer code solves coupled phenomena of thermal hydraulics and sodium fire based on a multi-zone model. It deals with an arbitrary number of rooms, each of which is connected mutually by doorways and penetrations. With regard to the combustion phenomena, a flame sheet model and a liquid droplet combustion model are used for pool and spray fires, respectively, with the chemical equilibrium model based on the Gibbs free energy minimization method. The chemical reaction and mass and heat transfer are solved interactively. A specific feature of is detailed representation of thermalhydraulics of a sodium pool and a steel liner, which is placed on the floor to prevent sodium–concrete contact. The authors analyzed a series of pool combustion experiments, in which gas and liner temperatures are measured in detail. It has been found that good agreement is obtained and the code has been validated with regard to pool combustion phenomena. Further research needs are identified for pool spreading modeling considering thermal deformation of steel liner and measurement of pool fluidity property as a mixture of liquid sodium and reaction products. The code is to be used mainly in the safety evaluation of the consequence of a sodium fire accident in a liquid metal cooled fast reactor as well as fire safety analysis in general.     

Synchrotron radiation studies of additives in combustion I: Water

Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) measurements have been performed on a partially pre-mixed ethylene-air flame with and without the introduction of a water aerosol for the same flame height. Our measurements are sensitive to particles with radii in the range of 6-78 nm. It is found that water addition leads to soot suppression below the detection limit at low heights along the flame centerline (<11 mm) and to an increased sooting tendency higher up in the flame. There, larger primary particles (R_g∼20-45 nm) shaped as agglomerates with fractal dimension about 2 are observed together with a large number of smaller (R_g ∼ 10 nm) smooth particles, which we identify with sub-primary units observed in previous work on pure diffusion flames. In the case of the un-doped partially pre-mixed flame, however, only relatively (R_g ∼ 20-35 nm) large spherical particles (Porod’s exponent about 4) are observed. An intriguing result is that water addition induces the enhanced formation of sub-primaries, with these having more than 2 orders of magnitude higher number concentration with respect to the spherical particles in the water free flame.     

Characterization of defect accumulation in neutron-irradiated Mo by positron annihilation spectroscopy

Positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy measurements were performed on neutron-irradiated low carbon arc cast Mo. Irradiation took place in the high flux isotope reactor, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, at a temperature of 80 ± 10 °C. Neutron fluences ranged from 2 × 10²¹ to 8 × 10²⁴ n/m² (E > 0.1 MeV), corresponding to displacement damage levels in the range from 7.2 × 10⁻⁵ to 2.8 × 10⁻¹ displacements per atom (dpa). A high density of submicroscopic cavities was observed in the neutron-irradiated Mo and their size distributions were estimated. Cavities were detected even at a very low-dose of ∼10⁻⁴ dpa. The average size of the cavities did not change significantly with dose, in contrast to neutron-irradiated bcc Fe where cavity sizes increased with increasing dose. It is suggested that the in-cascade vacancy clustering may be significant in neutron-irradiated Mo, as predicted by molecular dynamics simulations.     

CHF experiment and CFD analysis in a 2 × 3 rod bundle with mixing vane

In this study, the CHF enhancement using various mixing vanes is evaluated and the flow characteristics are investigated through the CHF experiments and CFD analysis.CHF tests were performed using 2 × 2 and 2 × 3 rod bundles and with R-134a as the working fluid. The test section geometry was identical to that of commercial PWR fuel assembly not including the heated length (1.125 m) and number of fuel rods. From the CHF tests, it was found that the CHF enhancement using mixing vanes under higher mass flux (1400 kg/m² s) and lower pressure (15 bar) conditions is larger than the CHF enhancements under other conditions. Among the mixing vanes used in this study, the swirl vane showed the best performance under relatively low pressure (15 bar) and mass flux (300-1000 kg/m² s) conditions and the hybrid vane performed best near the PWR operating conditions.The detailed flow characteristics were also investigated by CFD analysis using the same conditions as the CHF tests. To calculate the subcooled boiling flow, the wall partitioning model was applied to the wall boundary and various two-phase parameters were also considered. The reliability of the CFD analysis in the boiling analysis was confirmed by comparing the average void fractions of the analysis and the experiments: the results agreed well. From the CFD analysis, the void fraction flattening as a result of the lateral velocity induced by the mixing vane was observed. By the lateral motion of the liquid, the void fraction in the near wall was decreased and that of the core region was increased resulting in the void fraction flattening. The decrease of the void fraction in the near wall region promoted liquid supply to the wall and consequently the CHF increased. For the quantification of the void flatness, an index was developed and the applicability of the index in the CHF assessment was confirmed.     

Numerically simulating the thermal-hydraulic characteristics within the fuel rod bundle using CFD methodology

With the dramatic progress in the computer processing power, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology can be applied in investigating the detailed knowledge of thermal-hydraulic characteristics in the rod bundle, especially with the spacer grid. These localized information, including flow, turbulence, and heat transfer characteristics, etc., can assist in the design and the improvement of rod bundles for nuclear power plants. In this paper, a three-dimensional (3D) CFD model with the Reynolds stresses turbulence model is proposed to simulate these characteristics within the rod bundle and subsequently to investigate the effects of different types of grid on the turbulent mixing and heat transfer enhancement. Two types of grid designs are used herein, including the standard grid and split-vane pair one, respectively. Based on the CFD simulations, the secondary flow can be reasonably captured in the rod bundle with the grid. The split-vane pair grid would enhance both the flow mixing and the heat transfer capability more than the standard grid does, as clearly shown in the simulation results. In addition, compared with the results of experiment and correlation, the present predicted result for the Nusselt (Nu) number distribution downstream the grid shows reasonable agreement for the standard grid design. However, there is discrepancy in the decay trend of Nu number between the prediction and measurement for the split-vane pair gird. This would be improved by adopting the finer mesh (y⁺ < 1) simulation and Low-Reynolds form turbulence model, which is our future research work.     

钠冷快堆钠池火事故数值模拟

为了估计和预测钠火事故的后果，构建了以“有火焰薄层”为理论基础的燃烧模型和热传输模型，给出了程序计算结果与试验值的比较。比较结果证实，该计算结果可信、模型合理。程序可用来分析和预测钠池火事故。     

CFD analysis of a turbulent jet behavior induced by a steam jet discharge through a single hole in a subcooled water tank

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis for a turbulent jet flow induced by a steam jet discharged into a subcooled water pool was performed for 10 s of transients to investigate whether the currently available CFD codes can be suitably used as a tool to investigate the applicability of the existing semi-analytical correlations to a condensing jet-induced turbulent jet and to analyze the thermal-hydraulic behavior, such as global circulation and local hot spot, in a condensation pool for advanced light water reactors. As for the numerical experiment, a series of sensitivity calculations was conducted systematically to elucidate the major factors which can cause different analysis results by varying the mesh distributions, numerical models for a convection term and an eddy viscosity term. The effect of a difference in the velocity and the temperature distribution in a region between the sparger and the pool wall has not been observed in the afore-mentioned sensitivity calculations. The comparison of the CFD results with the test data shows that the CFD analysis does not accurately simulate the local phenomenon of a turbulent jet existing downstream of a steam jet. It was found that the value of the turbulent intensity at the inlet of the turbulent jet region is the most important factor because it can determine the boundary of a turbulent jet through a momentum diffusion process in a radial direction. The comparison of the CFD results with the test data shows that the CFD analysis can accurately simulate the local phenomenon of a turbulent jet existing downstream of a steam jet only when the CFD analysis reflects the physics of a turbulent jet.     

A second order turbulence model based on a Reynolds stress approach for two-phase boiling flow and application to fuel assembly analysis

High-thermal performance PWR (pressurized water reactor) spacer grids require both low-pressure loss and high critical heat flux (CHF) properties. Numerical investigations on the effect of angles and position of mixing vanes and to understand in more details the main physical phenomena (wall boiling, entrainment of bubbles in the wakes, recondensation) are required.In the field of fuel assembly analysis or design by means of CFD codes, the overwhelming majority of the studies are carried out using two-equation Eddy Viscosity Models (EVM), especially the standard K-? model, while the use of Reynolds Stress Transport Models (RSTM) remains exceptional.The simulation of swirling flow generated by the mixing vanes plays an important role for the prediction of the CHF for the fuel assemblies. For this reason, according to [14] and [Mimouni et al., 2009b], rotation effects and RSTM model are more specifically addressed in the paper.Before comparing performance of EVM and RSTM models on fuel assembly geometry, we performed calculations with simpler geometries, the DEBORA case and the ASU-annular channel case. ASU-annular channel case has already been addressed in [14] and [Mimouni et al., 2009b].Then, a geometry closer to actual fuel assemblies is considered. It consists of a rectangular test section in which a 2 × 2 rod bundle equipped with a simple spacer grid with mixing vanes is inserted. The influence of the turbulence model on target variables linked to CHF limitation will be discussed. Moreover, the sensitivity to the mesh refinement will be particularly examined. The study of this case is a further step towards the modelling of the two-phase boiling flow in real-life grids and rod bundles.     

Flux dependent MeV ion induced modification of nano-Ag/Si system

Thin films of Ag (1.5 nm thick) are grown on Si (1 1 1) substrates using evaporation method in high vacuum condition and due to non-wetting nature of silver, isolated islands of mean size ≈12.0 nm have been formed on the surface. Au²⁺ (1.5 MeV) ions have been used to irradiate the above systems at various fluences (5 × 10¹³-1 × 10¹⁵ cm⁻²) at an impact angle of 5° and at a flux of 6.3 × 10¹² cm⁻² s⁻¹ (corresponding to a beam current density of 2.0 μA cm⁻² for Au²⁺ ions). Ion beam induced embedding is observed to begin at a fluence of 1 × 10¹⁴ cm⁻² for this high flux whereas low flux irradiations (current density ≈ 0.02 μA cm⁻²) of Au²⁺ ions under similar irradiation conditions did not yield embedding (impact angle 5°). High resolution transmission electron microscopy measurement showed no mixing in the form of silicide formation. These results are compared with high flux modifications in Au/Si system.     

Rayleigh, Compton and K-shell radiative resonant Raman scattering in 83Bi for 88.034 keV γ-rays

The Rayleigh, Compton and K-shell radiative resonant Raman scattering cross-sections for the 88.034 keV γ-rays have been measured in the ₈₃Bi (K-shell binding energy = 90.526 keV) element. The measurements have been performed at 130° scattering angle using reflection-mode geometrical arrangement involving the ¹⁰⁹Cd radioisotope as photon source and an LEGe detector. Computer simulations were exercised to determine distributions of the incident and emission angles, which were further used in evaluation of the absorption corrections for the incident and emitted photons in the target. The measured cross-sections for the Rayleigh scattering are compared with the modified form-factors (MFs) corrected for the anomalous-scattering factors (ASFs) and the S-matrix calculations; and those for the Compton scattering are compared with the Klein-Nishina cross-sections corrected for the non-relativistic Hartree-Fock incoherent scattering function S(x, Z). The ratios of the measured KL₂, KL₃, KM and KN_2,3 radiative resonant Raman scattering cross-sections are found to be in general agreement with those of the corresponding measured fluorescence transition probabilities.     

Simulation of hydrogen mitigation in catalytic recombiner. Part-II: Formulation of a CFD model

This paper aims at formulation of a model compatible with CFD code to simulate hydrogen distribution and mitigation using a Passive Catalytic Recombiner in the Nuclear power plant containments. The catalytic recombiner is much smaller in size compared to the containment compartments. In order to fully resolve the recombination processes during the containment simulations, it requires the geometric details of the recombiner to be modelled and a very fine mesh size inside the recombiner channels. This component when integrated with containment mixing calculations would result in a large number of mesh elements which may take large computational times to solve the problem. This paper describes a method to resolve this simulation difficulty. In this exercise, the catalytic recombiner alone was first modelled in detail using the best suited option to describe the reaction rate ( [Prabhudharwadkar et al., 2005] and [Prabhudharwadkar et al., 2011]). A detailed parametric study was conducted, from which correlations for the heat of reaction (hence the rate of reaction) and the heat transfer coefficient were obtained. These correlations were then used to model the recombiner channels as single computational cells providing necessary volumetric sources/sinks to the energy and species transport equations. This avoids full resolution of these channels, thereby allowing larger mesh size in the recombiners. The above mentioned method was successfully validated using both steady state and transient test problems and the results indicate very satisfactory modelling of the component.     

A numerical study of radiation heat transfer in sodium pool combustion and response surface modeling of luminous flame emissivity

A response surface model of the luminous flame emissivity of sodium pool fire has been proposed for use in safety analysis computer codes of a liquid metal fast reactor. The liquid sodium burns in air resulting in not only heat generation but also release of sodium oxide aerosols of sub-micron diameters. Aerosols levitating in air are radiative and they influence the allocation of combustion heat from the flame to atmospheric gas or sodium pool. The emissivity of the flame needs to be quantified, as it is one of user-specified parameters of the computer codes for the sodium fire analysis. The response surface model of the flame emissivity is developed based on numerical experiments on the physics of mass and heat transfer and behavior of the aerosol. Thermal-hydraulic equations have been solved coupled with aerosol dynamics and chemical reaction. Three influential variables on the emissivity are identified as pool temperature, gas temperature and oxygen molar fraction in the air. It has been found that the emissivity is calculated reasonably as a function of the three variables. The proposed response surface model can be easily employed in the sodium fire analysis codes because it is a simple quadratic expression. For the safety evaluation of the sodium fire, combined use is recommended of the proposed model and the lumped-mass zone model code.     

Analytical model for CHF in narrow gaps with surface orientation effects

The CHF in rectangular narrow gaps has been investigated to develop a reasonable predictive model for CHF, accounting for the surface orientation effects. The model was based on Wallis formulation of the counter current flow limitation (CCFL) for flooding of the flow entrance gap. The results by the predictive model were compared with the experimental data by Kim and Suh (2003), and a good agreement was obtained for gap sizes of 1 mm and 2 mm with surface inclination angles ranging from 15° to 90°. However, when the surface inclination angle was less than 15° (nearly downward-facing position), the predictive model underestimated the CHF. A modified Katto–Kosho correlation based on Kutateladze approach was further proposed and it could predict the CHF well for inclination angles less than 15°, due to the surface tension effects. For the gap sizes of 5 mm and 10 mm, the predictive results were far larger than experimental data by Kim and Suh. And the large differences between the predictive results and experimental data were attributed to the fact that the mechanism of CHF in large gap is quite different from a narrow gap. It indicated that the validity of the model based on CCFL was limited to gaps of less than 5 mm. The present work is instructive for the safety analysis of the lower head of PWR in case of core meltdown during severe accident.