Analysis of heat dissipation in a numerically generated postulated fuel debris bed in liquid Pb cool

Analysis of heat dissipation in a numerically generated postulated fuel debris bed in liquid Pb coolant

To evaluate the safety of Lead Fast Reactors (LFR's) during a severe accident with core degradation and loss of fuel inventory, it is important to understand the underlying flow and heat transfer phenomena that could cause a fuel debris bed to either disperse or accumulate.  This requires a detailed analysis of the formation, spreading as well as cooling of such a bed.  As it is a complex problem that would be hazardous to investigate physically, modern DEM and CFD methods may be employed to firstly i) generate a numerical bed, then ii) analyse the flow and heat transfer behaviour of the bed.

The student will be expected to perform DEM and CFD simulation of a representative LFR in Siemens Simcenter Star-CCM+ and compare the results to a similar study performed with a different code, evaluate the differences and proceed to model new and unique transient scenarios to understand the evolution of a severe accident.