Experimental Study on PIV Measurement and CFD Investigation of the Internal Flow Characteristics in a Reactor Coolant Pump

Abstract

The nuclear reactor coolant pump (RCP) is the core piece of equipment of a nuclear power plant (NPP). The energy performance and internal flow characteristics of RCPs are revealed by effective measurement methods, which are helpful to understand the flow mechanism of RCPs. The present work is intended to conduct an integrated study based on the energy performance test and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) flow-field non-contact measurement of the RCP. In addition, the prediction results of different turbulence models are compared with experimental results in detail. Through energy performance measurement and numerical calculation analysis, it can be found that various turbulence models have the ability to predict the performance of RCPs in engineering applications. At 0.8~1.2 Φd operating conditions, the maximum error is less than 10% and the minimum error is less than 0.1% by analyzing the energy performance of numerical calculations and experimental results. The PIV results show that the velocity of the discharge nozzle varies greatly from right (outlet of diffuser channel 2) to left (outlet of diffuser channel 12) due to different flow structures. Through the qualitative and quantitative comparison of the internal flow field, it can be concluded that, except for the low flow rate, compared with other computational models, the Realizable k-ε model can better predict the internal flow field of an RCP. The reasons for the experimental error and numerical calculation error are analyzed in detail, and the results can provide a reference for forecasting an RCP internal flow field with a special and complex structure.