Numerical investigation of a novel cooling vortex tower using Relap5 computer code
•A simulation is carried out to investigate airflow characteristics of a vortex tower model using Relap5 system code.•A detailed model of the vortex tower is developed and qualified.•Effect of inlet air velocity and number of air inlet openings are analyzed.•The velocity, pressure and temperature of...
Saved in:
| Published in: | Nuclear engineering and design Vol. 391; p. 111730 |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Amsterdam
Elsevier B.V
01-05-2022
Elsevier BV |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | •A simulation is carried out to investigate airflow characteristics of a vortex tower model using Relap5 system code.•A detailed model of the vortex tower is developed and qualified.•Effect of inlet air velocity and number of air inlet openings are analyzed.•The velocity, pressure and temperature of air in the entire system have been presented and discussed.•The simulation results analysis showed that the present vortex tower configuration is capable of generating airflow with a maximum air velocity of 5.411 m/s at a height of 0.560 m from the base. This is the conversion point of kinetic energy into mechanical energy.•knowledge the most suitable location to install a turbine in order to extract the maximum kinetic energy of the flow.•The simulation highlighted clearly the contribution of inlet parameters and number of inlet openings to the enhencement of the tower performences.
The main objective of this work consists of modeling, simulation and analysis of the kinematic, dynamic and thermal characteristics of airflow through a novel vortex tower model carried out at the Nuclear Research Center of Birine (Algeria). This work is a contribution to a project aiming to study and design a vortex tower prototype based on an airflow heated by the secondary circuit of a nuclear reactor. The purpose of this process is to use the lost energy, traditionally transferred to the environment to cool a facility, to generate an additional amount of electrical energy. The main issue to be resolved in this study is to identify the appropriate location in the flow path where the flow characteristics are the most suitable to recover the maximum electrical energy using a turbo generator.
The work presented in this paper is to investigate the airflow characteristics and predict the behavior of the vortex tower model using Relap5 system code in spite of the chaotic nature of the flow in such geometry. In addition, a parametric study is carried out in order to identify the effect of some parameters on the tower performance such as the air inlet velocity ranging from 0.01 to 0.3 m/s and the number of inlet openings varied from 1 to 8.
Vortex model geometry is created and nodalized according to Relap5 system code modeling guidance and requirements. The developed model was qualified against experimental and numerical results available in the literature in terms of velocity quantities, as well as with an analytical calculation using the mass balance, a good agreement was obtained. The analysis of the simulation results showed that the selected tower configuration presents good characteristics with a maximum air velocity of 5.5411 m/s at a height of 0.560 m from the base (inlet section). The simulation highlighted clearly the contribution of the inlet parameters and the number of inlet openings to the enhancement of the vortex tower performances. The investigations revealed that an increase in air inlet velocity until 0.3 m/s leads to an increase of air velocity at the narrowing point of the tower attaining a maximum of 16.217 m/s. Furthermore, the results also showed that the maximum airflow velocity increases by 87 % when the number of air inlet openings is varied from 1 to 8. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0029-5493 1872-759X |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.nucengdes.2022.111730 |