Abstract:
LBE-cooled fast reactor (LBFR) has a promising application prospect in energy generation and transmutation of highlevel radioactive waste. Wirewrapped fuel rods are usually used in LBFR to reach high heat transfer efficiency and selfsupport. The wire spacer has a great influence on the transverse flow and interchannel mixing, and leads to a nonuniform temperature profile over the fuel rod surface. Therefore, accurate prediction of the transverse flow mixing characteristics in the wirewrapped bundle channel is the basis of thermalhydraulic safety analysis of LBFR. In the present study, a CFD modeling and simulation for a LBEcooled 7pin wirewrapped fuel assembly was carried out based on RANS method. The simulation results were firstly compared with the experimental data from the literature. A good agreement demonstrated the capability of the employed approach to predict the flow field in the rod bundle. Then, the threedimensional transverse flow mixing behaviors of LBE in single wirewrapped fuel and multi wire-wrapped fuel assemblies were analyzed in detail. The results show that the maximum transverse flow velocity in the central sub-channel of the single wirewrapped fuel assembly does not exceed 19% of the axial flow velocity. The transverse flow direction and secondary flow center change periodically with height. In the single wirewrapped fuel assembly, the transverse flow at the interface of the central subchannel is distributed as a trigonometric function along the axis. When the wire spacer coincides with the interface of the central subchannel,the transverse flow and the transverse flow mixing index tend to zero. When the wire spacer is perpendicular to the interface, the transverse flow and the transverse flow mixing index reach the peak. The transverse flow mixing index is not sensitive to Reynolds number in the turbulent zone, but is strongly correlated to the structural parameters of the assembly, which means that the lateral mixing in the wirewrapped bundle is dominated by the flow sweeping mechanism, rather than turbulent mixing. Compared with the single wire-wrapped fuel assembly, the transverse flow distribution of the multi wirewrapped fuel assembly is more uniform and more secondary flow vortex can be observed. The swirling directions of the LBE around the two adjacent fuel rods in the multi wirewrapped fuel assembly are opposite. That is, there are two opposite transverse flow directions on the interface of the central subchannel in the multi wirewrapped fuel assembly.