Engineering topics
Rodriguez, Sal
Publications and source records attributed to Rodriguez, Sal.
Progress in Fast Modular Reactor Conceptual Design
The Fast Modular Reactor (FMR) is a 100-MW(thermal) gas-cooled fast reactor being developed by General Atomics Electromagnetic System with the goal of developing a FMR for flexible and dispatchable power to the U.S. electricity market in the mid-2030s. The conceptual design aims to develop and verify simplified design features. These include an inert helium gas coolant, pellet-loaded fuel rods, installations with air cooling as ultimate heat sink, and small and passive heat removal systems. The goal is to ensure the development of a safe, maintainable, cost-effective, and distributed nuclear energy-generating station. The baseline technologies selected to achieve this goal are a helium coolant that is an inert gas with no chemical reaction with structural components, not activated, single phase, enabling high-temperature operation and a high thermal efficiency Brayton cycle; conventional uranium dioxide (UO 2 ) fuel, which is the most widely used and well-known fuel material, capable of high burnup (100 MWd/kg) and a long fuel life; and silicon carbide composite (SiGA®) cladding and internal structures that are chemically inert in the helium environment, exceptionally radiation tolerant, and being derisked by accident tolerant fuel technology development. Further, the reactor was specifically designed with passive safety features, including high-temperature in-core materials and a reactor vessel cooling system consisting of cooling panels of naturally circulating water. The passive safety of the core was confirmed for the depressurized loss-of–forced cooling accident, which showed the peak cladding temperature at ~1600°C during the transient, which is below the current design limit of 1800°C. The conceptual design of the FMR has been conducted for the reactor system, vessel system, generator and turbomachine, instrumentation and control, residual heat removal system, plant service system, and containment, as well as pre-application licensing documents.
Compositional Effects of Additively Manufactured Refractory High-Entropy Alloys under High-Energy Helium Irradiation
High-Entropy Alloys (HEAs) are proposed as materials for a variety of extreme environments, including both fission and fusion radiation applications. To withstand these harsh environments, materials processing must be tailored to their given application, now achieved through additive manufacturing processes. However, radiation application opportunities remain limited due to an incomplete understanding of the effects of irradiation on HEA performance. In this letter, we investigate the response of additively manufactured refractory high-entropy alloys (RHEAs) to helium (He) ion bombardment. Through analytical microscopy studies, we show the interplay between the alloy composition and the He bubble size and density to demonstrate how increasing the compositional complexity can limit the He bubble effects, but care must be taken in selecting the appropriate constituent elements.
Theoretical Approach for the Fast Estimation of the Turbulent Kinematic Viscosity for Internal Flows
An analytical expression for turbulent kinematic viscosity (νt), based solely on the hydraulic Reynolds number (Re), was derived and evaluated. The analytical expression is valid for the fast estimation of νt for internal, isotropic, fully developed flows. The expression was compared with experimental and simulation data for air, water, and liquid sodium, and was shown to provide reasonable values for 2100 ≤ Re ≤ 3.6 × 106 and Prandtl number (Pr) range of 0.0107 ≤ Pr ≤ 5.65. In addition, new expressions suitable for the central portion of internal flows, away from the wall, were derived for the turbulent Reynolds number (ReT), showing its relationship to Re, as well as to the ratio of νt and the molecular kinematic viscosity (ν).
right-sized dimple evaluator
The code (aka computer program written as a Matlab script) uses a unique set of n independent equations to solve for n turbulence variables. The code requires the input of a characteristic dimension, a characteristic fluid velocity, the fluid dynamic viscosity, and the fluid density. Most importantly, the code estimates the size of three key turbulent eddies: Kolmogorov, Taylor, and integral. Based on the eddy sizes, dimples dimensions are prescribed such that the key eddies (principally Taylor, and sometimes Kolmogorov), can be generated by the dimple rim and flow unimpeded through the dimple’s concave cavity. It is hypothesized that turbulent eddies are generated by the dimple rim at the dimple-surface interface. The newly-generated eddies in turn entrain the movement of surrounding regions of fluid, creating more mixing. The eddies also generate lift near the wall surrounding the dimple, as they accelerate and reduce pressure in the regions near and at the dimple cavity, thereby minimizing the fluid drag.
Lagrangian 3D CFD Simulation of Turbulent Aerosol Experiments
As a continuation of Year 2 of the Department of Energy's Nuclear Safety Research and Development (NSRD) project, high-fidelity computational tools developed at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) were used to substantiate airborne release fraction and respirable fraction data in DOE-HDBK-3010. For this research, SNL's incompressible Fuego computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code was coupled onto thousands of Lagrangian aerosol particles that were individually tracked. Although Fuego does not currently have a particle interaction model (e.g., agglomeration), aerosol resuspension was implemented this year as a part of this project. The model improvement from exploratory simulations, as described in the previous year, will be discussed in this paper, along with other simulations for other aerosol experiments that use the resuspension model. In addition, key experiment turbulence parameters will be calculated, and various turbulence models will be examined for applicability towards complex geometries and dispersal conditions. (authors)