A numerical investigation of natural convection heat transfer in horizontal spent-fuel storage cask

Natural convection heat transfer in a horizontally placed dry spent-fuel storage cask is numerical investigated. The commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, -3.2 is used and the laminar and turbulent model are employed. The numerical predictions obtained are compared with the experimental data reported by Nishimura et al. [J. Nucl. Sci. Technol. 33 (1996) 821]. The computational results corresponding to laminar model agree well with the experimental data, but the calculated results of turbulent model are higher. The velocity pattern and the isotherms are drawn. With the increasing of Rayleigh number, the heat transfer in the cask changes from conduction dominant mode to convection dominant mode. In the condition of Ra_m=1.3×10⁹, turbulent model prevails. The convective heat transfer is so strong that almost all temperature changes take place in the region near the wall of the cask. The Rayleigh number Ra_m and the Nusselt number Nu_m characterized by maximum temperature difference are defined to depict the heat transfer characteristics. It is found laminar and turbulent models predict the same trend but different value. The flow patterns in the cask can be divided to three regimes. In these three regimes, modified Nusselt numbers are proportional to the 0.7, 0.25 and 0 power of the modified Rayleigh number, respectively.