go to top scroll for more

Projects

Projects: Projects for Investigator
Reference Number EP/M018261/1
Title Indo - UK: Premature, Oscillation-Induced Critical Heat Flux ("Premature OICHF")
Status Completed
Energy Categories Nuclear Fission and Fusion(Nuclear Fission, Nuclear supporting technologies) 100%;
Research Types Basic and strategic applied research 100%
Science and Technology Fields PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Physics) 25%;
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering) 75%;
UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation Not Cross-cutting 100%
Principal Investigator Dr S Walker
No email address given
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Imperial College London
Award Type Standard
Funding Source EPSRC
Start Date 01 December 2015
End Date 30 November 2018
Duration 36 months
Total Grant Value £112,729
Industrial Sectors Energy
Region London
Programme Energy : Energy
 
Investigators Principal Investigator Dr S Walker , Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London (99.997%)
  Other Investigator Dr R Issa , Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London (0.001%)
Dr MJ Bluck , Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London (0.001%)
Professor GF Hewitt , Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London (0.001%)
Web Site
Objectives
Abstract Water is an excellent coolant for nuclear reactors, but steam is a very poor one. The ability to predict with confidence, but without excessive conservatism, the point at which cooling by water will turn into cooling by just steam is absolutely vital. The the rate of transfer of heat at which this transition occurs is known as the "critical heat flux" (CHF).Predicting the circumstances under which CHF would occur (and then making sure that reactor operating conditions stay well away from them) is a very large part of the thermal hydraulic design of water cooled reactors.There are some, unusual, circumstances in which the flows inside a nuclear reactor can become unsteady and cyclical, with flow-rates rising and falling with time. Under the circumstances, predicting the critical heat flux not surprisingly becomes rather more complicated and difficult.This project is attempting to build a computer model which will predict when critical heat flux occurs in the presence of cyclical flows. The second strand of this project is to conduct experiments in which a test section is exposed to a cyclical flow, and the occurrence or not of critical heat flux is observed. The model we develop will then be tested and refined against these measurements. A validated, general-purpose tool for predicting critical heat flux under conditions of oscillatory flow will be a useful additional capability available to reactor designers and safety analysts
Data

No related datasets

Projects

No related projects

Publications

No related publications

Added to Database 24/08/16