abstract

• In this paper, we calculate the heat transfer effective coefficients for a Liquid Metal-Cooled Fast Reactor. We upscaled the local energy equation of a fuel pin and its surrounding liquid metal (cooler fluid) to the whole fuel assembly representing the entire nuclear reactor core. Such an upscaling procedure was carried out within the volume averaging framework. The upscaled model contains two coupled energy equations, and jointly three closure problems are presented which assist to numerically compute the effective coefficients. The closure problems consist of boundary-value problems, whose solution must be carried out in a representative geometry of fuel assembly. The closure problems were solved to obtain the closure variables, with which the effective coefficients related to conductivity and convection heat transfer were obtained. The upscaled model results were compared with the more-intensive numerical solution of the pin-scale mathematical model. An acceptable agreement was found validating the mathematical structure of the upscaled model, the closure problems, and the definitions of effective parameters. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd

authors

• Aguilar-Madera C.G.
• Espinosa-Paredes G.
• Herrera Hernández Erik César

publication date

• 2021-01-01

funding provided via

• Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, CONACYT; Secretaría de Energía de México, SENER  Grant

published in

• International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer  Journal

keywords

• Effective coefficients; Fuel assembly; Heat transfer; Hexagonal array; Liquid metal-cooled fast reactor; Volume averaging method Boundary value problems; Fast reactors; Fuels; Liquid metals; Reactor cores; Effective parameters; Energy equation; Fuel assembly; Liquid-metal-cooled fast reactors; Mathematical structure; Model results; Numerical solution; Volume-averaging; Heat convection

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2020.120622

PubMed ID

start page

end page

volume

• 165

issue