IAEA NAPRO Coordinated Research Project : Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Correlations for Sodium Cooled Systems

S. Jayaraj (1) , E. Bubelis (2) , S. Perez-Martin (2) , S. Passerini (3) , C. Gerardi (3) , C. Grandy (3) , F. Roelofs (1) , C. Latge (4) , A. Gerschenfeld (4) , M. Anderhuber (4) , L. Cachon (4) , L. Matteo (4) , S. Athmalingam (5) , P. Selvaraj (5) , S. Monti (6)

1 Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group
2 Institute of Biomedical Engineering [Karlsruhe]
3 ANL - Argonne National Laboratory [Lemont]
4 CEA-DES (ex-DEN) - CEA-Direction des Energies (ex-Direction de l'Energie Nucléaire)
5 Nuclear and Radioanalytical Chemistry, IGCAR, Kalpakkam-603102, Tamilnadu
6 IAEA - International Atomic Energy Agency [Vienna]

In 2013 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) established a Coordinated Research Project (CRP) on “Sodium properties and safe operation of experimental facilities in support of the development and deployment of Sodium Cooled Fast Reactors”, the socalled CRP-NAPRO project to be carried out in the time period of 2013–2017. This activity has the aim to establish a common database of sodium properties and related correlations, as well as other important sodium technology related issues, thus contributing to the enhanced safety of future sodium cooled systems. The CRP work package WP 1.2, under the leadership of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), is focused on the collection and assessment of heat transfer and pressure drop (friction factor) correlations for sodium cooled systems. In the end result, this activity will lead to a recommendation of qualified correlations for conditions occurring in sodium systems, such as forced convection and natural convection for circular tubes, rod bundles, wire-wrapped tubes, etc., which will be published in the form of separate chapter(s) of a general handbook. This work is carried out by five participating organizations from IAEA Member States through the review and evaluation of the existing correlations and the development of recommendations for experts working on sodium cooled systems. The implemented methodology for WP 1.2 is described, as well as the heat transfer and pressure drop (friction factor) correlations included in WP 1.2 and their classification. Major findings to date related to WP 1.2 are presented in this paper. The last section of the paper also includes preliminary conclusions from WP 1.2, as well as a list of the main correlations used by the participating organizations when simulating sodium cooled fast reactors and other sodium cooled systems.

Keywords: SFR; Na properties; correlations; IAEA

Domains: Nuclear Experiment [nucl-ex]; Nuclear Theory [nucl-th]

S. Jayaraj, E. Bubelis, S. Perez-Martin, S. Passerini, C. Gerardi, et al.. IAEA NAPRO Coordinated Research Project : Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop Correlations for Sodium Cooled Systems. ICAPP 2016 - 2016 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants, Apr 2016, San Francisco, United States. ⟨cea-02442356v2⟩