CFD investigation on thermal hydraulics of the passive residual heat removal heat exchanger (PRHR HX)

Passive residual heat removal (PRHR) system is a very important component of the passive safety systems in advanced passive safety pressurizer water reactors (PWRs) such as AP1000. The passive residual heat removal heat exchanger (PRHR HX) is a C-shape tube bundle heat exchanger immerged in the In-containment refueling water storage tank (IRWST) which removes the core decay heat during the accident transients. The performance of the PRHR HX is significant for the safety of the nuclear power plant (NPP). In this paper, the thermal hydraulics characteristics of the PRHR HX in the IRWST is analyzed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The tube region is modeled by the porous media approach along with the distributed resistance method. Heat transfer from the primary side fluid inside the tube to the secondary side fluid in the IRWST is considered. The simulation is carried out by the commercial CFD package FLUENT. The calculation of the flow resistance and heat transfer in the tube region is implemented using the User Defined Functions (UDF) in FLUENT based on the local flow conditions. Three dimensional distributions of the fluid velocity and temperature in the IRWST are obtained and thermal stratification is observed. The PRHR HX heat transfer capacity and the primary side fluid temperature distribution inside tubes are analyzed.