https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202124707013
STUDY OF CAVITATION IN LIQUID SODIUM AND SIMULATION OF DYNAMIC CORE DEFORMATIONS
1 *DES - Service d’études des réacteurs et de mathématiques appliquées (SERMA)
2 DES - Service de thermohydraulique et de mécanique des fluides (STMF)
CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
sofiane.houbar@cea.fr
antoine.gerschenfeld@cea.fr
cyril.patricot@cea.fr
Published online: 22 February 2021
Due to the high confinement of the closed fuel assemblies in Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors (SFR), the liquid sodium filling the space between these assemblies may vaporize in case of an important mechanical excitation (cavitation process). That phenomenon would therefore induce a specific force feedback to the assemblies leading to a specific neutronic response of the core. Neutronic of SFR is indeed sensible to mechanical deformation. Hence the necessity to have a good prediction of the displacement of these mechanical structures in the framework of Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI).
To study this kind of transient at a reactor scale, we propose in this paper a coupling procedure between the fluid and the structures. The fluid behaviour is investigated by Merkle’s three-equations model and simulated within a coarse mesh. The structures are modelled by a mass-spring system subjected to the fluid forces. In order to stabilize the numerical code coupling, a relaxation process is added and some results of this computational work are presented.
Key words: Deformed cores / Cavitation / Fluid-Structure Interaction / Code coupling
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2021
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
