Investigation of coolant mixing in head parts of VVER-440 fuel assemblies with burnable poison

Abstract

Abstract Detailed CFD model for the head parts of the VVER-440 fuel assemblies with burnable poison has been developed. The coolant mixing was analyzed in some typical assemblies with this model and the signals of the in-core thermocouples above the selected assemblies were calculated. The investigations pointed out that the mixing is intensive in these assembly heads but the coolant is not perfectly mixed before reaching the thermocouples. Significant differences between the outlet average coolant temperatures and the thermocouple signals were revealed in the case of the fresh fuels. These deviations can cause about 6 % underestimations in the online monitored assembly powers unless a proper correction is introduced. The coolant mixing was also studied by means of numerical tracers and weight factors of selected rod bundle regions for the in-core thermocouple were determined. Using these weight factors and the outlet enthalpies of the assemblies' subchannels, the thermocouple signals can be corrected.