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ADDITIVELY MANUFACTURED SURFACE HEAT TRANSFER ENHANCEMENTS FOR THE TRANSFORMATIONAL CHALLENGE REACTOR...

by Justin R Weinmeister, Adrian Sabau, Prashant K Jain
Publication Type
Conference Paper
Journal Name
The 19th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics
Book Title
Proceedings of the 19th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-19)
Publication Date
Page Numbers
1 to 14
Issue
1
Publisher Location
Illinois, United States of America
Conference Name
The 19th International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Reactor Thermal Hydraulics (NURETH-19)
Conference Location
Brussels, Belgium
Conference Sponsor
Sck Cen
Conference Date
-
The Transformational Challenge Reactor (TCR) is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor design that uses additively manufactured fuel elements. TCR fuel elements have walls made of silicon carbide and are filled with tristructural-isotropic fuel particles. These fuel elements can have radically different shapes and integrated features than existing designs due to the reduced cost for complex structures in binder jet additive manufacturing. As such, binder jet additive manufacturing enables wall surface features to be embedded that can deliver superior heat transfer performance than smooth wall designs. In this work, the authors conducted a computational fluid dynamics study to evaluate selected wall features integrated into TCR fuel elements. Results show that surface features can outperform smooth wall designs; however, there are unique challenges for gas-cooled reactor core designs that have not been fully explored by previous research. For example, the rough surface finish and process variability of ceramics additive manufacturing make it challenging to predict surface roughness effects before fabrication. Additionally, the small hydraulic diameters of coolant channels in reactor cores make it difficult to engineer surface features that do not significantly increase the pressure drop. Engineers must carefully size surface features for heat transfer enhancement in additive fuel elements to operate above the base material's surface roughness effects and below the coolant channel size.