Experimental investigation on powder conductivity for the application to double wall heat exchanger (NACIE-UP)

The present paper focuses on the experimental campaigns carried out in TxP to characterize AISI-316 powder in support to the qualification of the NACIE-UP heat exchanger. The main goals of the experiments are to assess the conductivity of AISI-316 powder, to highlight the effects of the procedure adopted to load the powder in the facility on its conductivity and to investigate the influence of thermal cycling. The experimental findings are finally compared to the results obtained from experimental campaigns performed in NACIE and applied to NACIE-UP to develop and discuss the pre-tests calculations carried out by means of computational fluid dynamic code.