EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY FOR THE STUDY OF THE PROCESSES IN MIXING LOW-PRESSURE HEATERS OF K-1000-60/3000 TURBINES

Nowadays, the development of nuclear energy is determined by solving the set of scientific and technical problems that provides reliable, safe and sustainable work of the operated and designed NPPs. At the same time different accident conditions and likelihood (probability) of variant equipment operating failures are analyzed. Obtained operating experience of the mixing low-pressure heaters (LPH) at thermal power plants (TPP) and NPPs shows that pulsations occur in some operation regimes of LPH turbine which lead to inner element destructions of LPH and pipeline malfunctions. These circumstances negatively affect operation of equipment that locates after LPH in condensate-supply tract. Consequently, unit capacity factor and economic indicators descend since troubleshooting for LPH mechanisms require some time and material resources. This work presents the experimental facility design and description of main design features of the facility components. The stand was designed to study the processes that lead to the vibration appearance in mixing LPH in condensate-supply tract of K-1000-60/3000 turbines. The main task of scale modeling is the need to observe equivalent conditions of the thermal-hydraulic processes behavior in the model in relation to full-scale equipment. To solve this problem using ANSYS code a preliminary simulation of hydraulic processes occurring in the experimental facility was performed. This allowed to determine in advance certain design features in the design of given facility. The results of experimental studies of the developed facility should allow to develop measures for reduction or complete elimination of vibrations in mixing LPH, as well as to validate computer programs for design analysis of stationary and non-stationary thermal-hydraulic processes in the specified equipment and designed measures testing.