Coupled Analysis on Steady Flow in Primary and Secondary Sides of PWR Steam Generator

The steam generator (SG) suffers from the challenge of tube rupture caused by the flow induced vibration (FIV) during operation. The 3D flow characteristics in SG are essential for the analysis of FIV. The secondary side flow field was simulated based on the porous media model, using the coupled heat transfer from primary to secondary side. The 3D velocity, temperature, pressure and quality distributions in secondary side, the one-dimensional temperature and heat transfer coefficient (HTC) distributions of primary and secondary sides as well as the U-tube temperature distribution were obtained. The thermal-hydraulic characteristic distributions in the shell side and the flow vapor quality distribution in separators are significantly uneven due to the non-uniformly distributed heat source released from primary to secondary side. The flow quality distribution in the separators varies from 0.05 to 0.62, which can be used to the design for separator load. The velocity distribution in the U-bend region was calculated, which provides input conditions for the evaluation of FIV damage of tubes.