Sensitivity Analysis of Turbulence Models for the Core Inlet Flow Distribution of PWR

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods have been developed into effective fluid simulation means to be used on the hydraulic design in the field of nuclear reactor. However, it is difficult to generate suitable mesh and select turbulence model for simulation because of the complex geometry structure and flow behavior in the pressure vessel. Based on CFX software, a hydraulic computation model of typical pressurized water reactor is established and the flow distribution at core inlet is analyzed. The simplified geometry model consists cold legs, downcomer, lower plenum, secondary support component, core support plate, and lower core plate. The computation model is divided into three parts for mesh generation, including the part of inlet and downcomer, the part of lower plenum and core inlet section, and the part of core. In order to reach the independence of grid several methods of mesh generation which contains different mesh density at local key parties are investigated to screen out the suitable mesh scheme. The k-ε, k-ω, and SST k-ω turbulence model are respectively used for simulation and the sensitivity of turbulence model at different locations of flow field is analyzed. The results show that the mass flow rate of the near wall flow field, computed by using k-ω turbulence model, is consistent with SST k-ω model, while the mass flow rate of central flow field computed by using k-ε turbulence agrees with SST k-ω model. The result computed by using k-ε turbulence model shows relatively uniform flow distribution at core inlet, which is more consistent with the measured data with the average difference of 3.1%. By using the k-ε model, the probability distribution of the difference between the calculated results and the experimental values follows the law of Normal distribution. The final coolant flow distribution at each orifice is evaluated, and the maximum normalized flow flux is found at center orifice while the flow rate at the edge of core is relatively lower.