Experimental investigation on heat transfer characteristics in a safety injection nozzle component in PWR

Thermal fatigue is a potentially significant degradation mechanism in Nuclear Power Plants (NPP). For the fatigue analysis, the thermal load information about components must be determined firstly. In this paper, an experimental study was carried out to obtain local fluid temperatures and local heat transfer coefficients for the safety injection nozzle component in reactor coolant system (RCS). In this mixing tee component a hot jet issues into a cold cross-flow stream from an oblique pipe and the turbulent mixing of two fluids induces local cycling stresses on the adjacent piping wall. Experiments were performed using a special-made heat fluxmeter, which can measure the mixed fluid temperature close to the wall and the heat transfer coefficient between the fluid and the wall. Plexiglass and metallic 1/9-scale mockups were manufactured for flow visualization and heat transfer tests, respectively. All tests were conducted at range of 0–40 for the jet-to-cross-flow velocity ratio. The flow visualization test has obtained general pattern of the flow and identified sensitive zones in the component where the jet and cross-flow interact intensively to cause thermal fatigue more possibly. In the heat transfer test, heat fluxmeters were positioned in the wall at these sensitive zones. The measurement results of temperatures and heat transfer coefficients have been discussed in detail in the paper. These experimental results allow us improving the state of knowledge of the thermal load to be used in the industrial mixing tees in operating for long lifetime assessment and for the design in the basic Nuclear Power Plants.