Orifice enabled flow stabilization of natural circulation loop at lower inclinations

Abstract

Abstract Natural circulation loop (NCL) is mainly used as passive cooling system in nuclear power plants to ensure safety during pump failure and station blackout. Stable operation without flow instability is the most desirable operational mode of natural circulation loop for passive cooling. The present work deals with numerical analysis on the effect of inclination of horizontal leg of a rectangular loop working in single phase and presence of orifice on the thermohydraulic behaviour of NCL, using commercial CFD code ANSYS FLUENT 19.0. The effect of temporal variation of loop mass flow rate and temperature difference across the cooler section is compared for inclined loop with and without orifice. It is observed that the flow stability attained in the loop at inclination h = 308 can be achieved at h = 108 with orifice, with a reduction in the loop mass flow rate of 28.57%. The reduction in loop mass flow rate is accompanied by an increase in temperature difference across the cooler of 46.67%.