Natural convection inside heated channel of a facility representing prismatic modular reactor core |
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| Authors: | Mahmoud M Taha Ibrahim A Said Shoaib Usman Muthanna H Al‐Dahhan |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Multiphase Reactors Engineering and Applications Laboratory (mReal), Dept. of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO;2. Chemical Engineering Dept., Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt;3. Dept. of Mining and Nuclear Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO;4. Cihan University of Erbil., Kurdistan, Iraq |
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| Abstract: | The newly developed Plenum‐to‐Plenum facility (P2PF) at Missouri S&T has shown to be an innovative separate effects test facility representing the geometry of prismatic modular reactors. Thermal and velocity fields inside this dual channel facility have been investigated under different natural circulation intensities. It is found that temperature and velocity profiles are function of the measurements locations and the amount of heat supplied to the channel. Quantification of the overall Rayleigh number  versus overall Reynold number  are found to be related by  . Upper plenum mixing was characterized by determining the modified Reynold number  and Froude number  dimensionless groups. Analysis of these dimensionless groups along with observable turbulence amplifications emphasize relevance of adopting axial temperature inflection as a criterion for initiation of naturally driven flow destabilization inside vertical heated channels. Additionally, quantification of the distortion factors for characteristic dimensionless groups reveal a good similarity between the P2PF and the Modular High Temperature Gas‐cooled Reactor. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 64: 3467–3478, 2018 |
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| Keywords: | prismatic modular reactors natural convection heated channels thermal‐hydraulics temperature and velocity fields hot wire anemometry |
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versus overall Reynold number 
are found to be related by 
. Upper plenum mixing was characterized by determining the modified Reynold number 
and Froude number 
dimensionless groups. Analysis of these dimensionless groups along with observable turbulence amplifications emphasize relevance of adopting axial temperature inflection as a criterion for initiation of naturally driven flow destabilization inside vertical heated channels. Additionally, quantification of the distortion factors for characteristic dimensionless groups reveal a good similarity between the P2PF and the Modular High Temperature Gas‐cooled Reactor. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 64: 3467–3478, 2018