Lead-cooled Fast Reactors (LFR) have been proved to be the most promising Generation IV reactors with excellent property in neutronics, thermal hydraulics and security features. As a critical equipment linking primary and secondary circuit in LFR, the design and performance of main heat exchanger plays a significant role in the operating efficient of whole reactor. However, for the high viscosity and density of lead, heat transfer enhancement of heat exchanger is only one part of the major improve goal. Pressure drop and dead zone in the whole heat exchanger should be taken into consideration as well.

Motivated by improving the thermo-hydraulic performance of main heat exchanger in LFR, this paper presents a numerical simulation on the possibility of applying shell and tube heat exchanger with twisted elliptic tubes for LFR. A three-dimensional model of twisted tube heat exchanger is built for the simulation through CFD software. Fluid flow characteristic and temperature distribution in both shell and tube side are analyzed to get an idea whether the twisted elliptic tubes are suitable for heat transfer of LBE or not. Additionally, a shell and tube heat exchanger with straight tubes is also studied for comparison.

The result show that the comprehensive performance coefficient of twisted tube heat exchanger is much higher than heat exchanger with straight tubes. Both heat transfer coefficient and average field-synergy angles are enhanced for the guidance function of twisted structure. The theoretical and numerical analytical results are helpful to the research and design of main heat exchanger in LFR.

Keywords: Lead-cooled Fast Reactor; Heat exchanger; Twisted tubes; Numerical simulation

 

 

 


Numerical Simulation of Twisted Tube Heat Exchanger for Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor

Division / Sponsors: 
Power Division & Nuclear Engineering Division (NED)

Power Conference
Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/POWER/POWER2020/volume/83747

International Conference on Nuclear Engineering
Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ICONE/ICONE2020/volume/83761

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