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Security Analysis of Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Applied Thermal Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 March 2024) | Viewed by 4668

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Sino-French Institute of Nuclear Engineering & Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China
Interests: reactor thermohydraulics; severe accidents; sodium-cooled fast reactor; lead–bismuth-cooled fast reactor
Sino-French Institute of Nuclear Engineering & Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China
Interests: reactor thermohydraulics; severe accidents; nucleate boiling; in-vessel retention; two-phase flow

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Guest Editor
United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, Oxfordshire OX14 3DB, UK
Interests: nuclear engineering; mechanical engineering; fluid dynamics; computational fluid dynamics; velocity measurements

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Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ajou University, Suwon 16649, Republic of Korea
Interests: nuclear thermal hydraulics; nuclear safety; phase-change heat transfer

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Guest Editor
Department of Nuclear Engineering and Management, The University of Tokyo, BUnkyo, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan
Interests: nuclear safety; nuclear decommissioning engineering; advanced nuclear systems; optical diagnostics; flow-induced vibration

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

As Guest Editor, I invite you to submit a paper to this Special Issue of Applied Science entitled “Security Analysis of Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics”. Although nuclear energy faced setbacks after the Fukushima accidents, it has become increasingly important due to the increased demand for clean and sustainable energies. Future nuclear reactors will have strict requirements regarding safety, sustainability, and the economy. Much research has been conducted globally in pursuit of meeting these requirements. In launching this Special Issue, we hope to present the latest cutting-edge research on nuclear security and thermal hydraulics.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Thermal hydraulics fundamentals;
  • Two-phase flow experiments and analysis;
  • CHF and Post-CHF heat transfer;
  • Instrumentation and measurement techniques;
  • Fluid–structure interactions;
  • Computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer;
  • Code development and V&V;
  • Severe accident experiments and analysis;
  • Hydrogen behavior and combustion;
  • Water reactor thermal hydraulics and safety;
  • Liquid metal reactor thermal hydraulics and safety;
  • Gas-cooled reactor thermal hydraulics and safety;
  • Fusion reactor thermal hydraulics and safety;
  • Thermal hydraulic aspects of plant operation;
  • Heat exchanger design and turbomachinery;
  • Probabilistic safety assessment (PSA);
  • Other issues related to nuclear security or thermal hydraulics.

Dr. Songbai Cheng
Dr. Kai Wang
Dr. Nejdet Erkan
Dr. Byeongnam Jo
Prof. Koji Okamoto
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • nuclear security
  • thermal hydraulics
  • computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
  • advanced reactors
  • water reactors
  • severe accidents
  • multi-phase flow
  • heat transfer

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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19 pages, 7068 KiB  
Article
Investigation of Wall Effect on Packing Structures and Purge Gas Flow Characteristics in Pebble Beds for Fusion Blanket by Combining Discrete Element Method and Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation
by Baoping Gong, Hao Cheng, Bing Zhou, Juemin Yan, Long Wang, Long Zhang, Yongjin Feng and Xiaoyu Wang
Appl. Sci. 2024, 14(6), 2289; https://doi.org/10.3390/app14062289 - 8 Mar 2024
Viewed by 529
Abstract
In a tritium-breeding blanket of a fusion reaction, helium, used as a tritium-purging gas, will purge the tritium breeder pebble beds to extract the tritium in blanket. The purge gas flow characteristics will affect the tritium extraction efficiency. The effect of the fixed [...] Read more.
In a tritium-breeding blanket of a fusion reaction, helium, used as a tritium-purging gas, will purge the tritium breeder pebble beds to extract the tritium in blanket. The purge gas flow characteristics will affect the tritium extraction efficiency. The effect of the fixed wall on the pebble packing structures and purge gas flow characteristics was investigated by combining the discrete element method (DEM) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. The results indicate that the fixed wall leads to a regular packing of the pebbles adjacent to the fixed wall in association with drastic fluctuations in the porosity of the pebble bed, which can affect the purge gas flow behaviors. Further analyses of helium flow behaviors show that the helium pressure in the pebble bed decreases in a linear manner along the flow direction, whereas the pressure drop gradient of helium increases gradually with an increase in the packing factor. The reduction in porosity in the pebble bed leads to a notable escalation in helium flow velocity. Concerning the direction perpendicular to the helium gas flow, the evolution of the cut-plane averaged velocity of helium is similar to that of the porosity, except in the region immediately adjacent to the wall. The pressure drop and flow characteristics obtained in this study can serve as input for the thermohydraulic analysis of the tritium blowing systems in the tritium-breeding blanket of a fusion reactor. Full article
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21 pages, 5451 KiB  
Article
Heat Transfer Mechanism Investigation of Bubble Growth on the Superhydrophilic Nano-Structured Surface Using Moving Particle Semi-Implicit Method
by Kailun Guo, Sijun Li, Yubao Zhong, Ronghua Chen, Mingjun Wang, Suizheng Qiu, Wenxi Tian and Guanghui Su
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(7), 4114; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13074114 - 23 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1715
Abstract
The boiling behavior on nano-structured surfaces is a frontier research direction in nuclear engineering. However, the mechanism of boiling heat transfer on nano-structured surfaces is still unclear. In this study, a depletable micro-layer model and the nano-structure model are proposed based on the [...] Read more.
The boiling behavior on nano-structured surfaces is a frontier research direction in nuclear engineering. However, the mechanism of boiling heat transfer on nano-structured surfaces is still unclear. In this study, a depletable micro-layer model and the nano-structure model are proposed based on the Moving Particle Semi-implicit (MPS) method coupled with Meshless-Advection using the Flow-directional Local-grid (MAFL) scheme, also known as the MPS-MAFL method. The developed method in this paper establishes a bridge between the nano-scale surface structure heat transfer and the macroscopic bubble boiling. Only by knowing the nanoparticle size, porosity, and thickness of the nano-structure, the heat transfer of the nano-structure can be considered into the macroscopic boiling bubble growth process. The accuracy of the approach is validated by benchmark cases and experiments, respectively. The present method quantitatively simulates the bubble growth behaviors on nano-structured surfaces for the first time. The results indicate that the heat transfer contribution of the micro-layer to bubble growth was not neglectable, while the proportion of heat transfer rate of the micro-layer on the bared surface was 40.55% at ΔTw = 7.22 ℃ and 32.23% at ΔTw = 10.15 ℃. The heat transfer contributions of the micro-layer and the wicked fluid to the bubble growth in the nano-structured heater were about 42.13%, the ratio of them was 14:11. The current study provides a fundamental base for further investigations. Full article
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Review

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35 pages, 12524 KiB  
Review
Characteristics and Mechanisms of Debris Bed Formation Behavior in Severe Accidents of Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactors: Experimental and Modeling Studies
by Ruicong Xu and Songbai Cheng
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(11), 6329; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13116329 - 23 May 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1342
Abstract
A Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) is one of the optimized candidates in Generation IV nuclear reactor systems, but safety is an essential issue for SFR development and application. Most knowledge was accumulated through SFR safety investigations, especially for Core Disruptive Accidents (CDAs). During [...] Read more.
A Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) is one of the optimized candidates in Generation IV nuclear reactor systems, but safety is an essential issue for SFR development and application. Most knowledge was accumulated through SFR safety investigations, especially for Core Disruptive Accidents (CDAs). During the CDA of SFRs, the molten materials in the core region are likely to discharge into subcooled sodium and form a debris bed on the lower region of the reactor vessel. Noticing that elaboration on the characteristics and mechanisms of Debris Bed Formation (DBF) behavior should be essential for the subsequent analysis of debris bed coolability and accident progression through various experimental and modeling studies, much knowledge was obtained during the past decades. Motivated to promote future investigations on CDAs of SFRs, the previous experiments and modeling studies on DBF behavior are systematically reviewed and discussed in this paper. The experimental results showed that the flow-regime and accumulated-bed characteristics during DBF were influenced by varying parameters and realistic conditions. Through the modeling studies, several empirical models were proposed for predicting the flow regime and accumulated-bed characteristics in DBF. In addition, to promote further development of research, the future prospects concerning DBF behavior are also described. Full article
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