Analyses on fluid flow and heat transfer inside Calandria vessel of CANDU-6 using CFD

In a CANada Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor, fuel channel integrity depends on the coolability of the moderator as an ultimate heat sink under transient conditions such as a loss of coolant accident (LOCA) with a coincidence of a loss of emergency core cooling (LOECC), as well as a normal operating condition. This study presents the assessments of moderator thermal–hydraulic characteristics in the normal operating condition and one transient condition for CANDU-6 reactors, using a general purpose three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics code. This study consists of two steps. First, an optimized calculation scheme is obtained by many-sided comparisons of the predicted results with the related experimental data, and by evaluating the fluid flow and temperature distributions. Then, in the second step, with the optimized scheme, the analyses for real CANDU-6 of normal operating condition and transition condition have been performed. The present model has successfully predicted the experimental results and also reasonably assessed the thermal–hydraulic characteristics of the real CANDU-6 with 380 fuel channels. Flow regime map with major parameters representing the flow pattern inside Calandria vessel has also proposed to be used as operational and/or regulatory guidelines.