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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Fluid structural interaction simulation of the MP-1 plate performance irradiated in the advanced test reactor

Due to the high neutron fluxes they generate and increased heat transfer performance, plate type fuels are used in the U.S. high-performance research reactors. During irradiation, a significant amount of fission energy (i.e., ~200 MeV per atom) is released by the U-235 chain reaction that is carried away by the coolant. Through thermal hydraulic analysis, the coolant’s heat transfer capability is investigated to ensure that the desired fuel temperature can be maintained. At high temperatures, the plate undergoes elastic/plastic deformation, creep, and swelling as a result of both the temperature gradients and the fission gas production within the fuel. These effects are studied via fuel performance analysis. When the plate deformation is small enough that the coolant flow remains relatively unchanged, conducting these two types of analyses independently will suffice. But at high fuel burnups, the swollen plates may encroach into the coolant channels that separate the fuel plates from each other and cause these channels to narrow. Large reductions in channel gap size imperil cooling performance, causing fuel temperatures to rise. Further, if the plate deformation is asymmetric, the fuel centerline will shift toward one side of the channel, causing an uneven reduction in coolability. In addition, a boehmite (oxide) layer will, over time, grow on the plate surface, further obstructing the heat transfer process. To precisely predict fuel temperatures/deformation, a complete coupled analysis that considers coolant flow, heat transfer, oxide growth, elastic/plastic deformation, creep, and swelling is needed; however, this type of analysis method is not available in the literature. To fill the gap, this research developed a fluid structure interaction (FSI) approach to the fuel plate analysis, then successfully applied it to the Mini-Plate (MP)-1 experiment, which was irradiated in the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) for both one and two cycles. The complete analysis coupled STAR-CCM+, a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software for calculating flow, with Abaqus, a finite element analysis code for calculating plate deformation. Improvements in the results were found when comparing the fully coupled analysis to the independently conducted analyses but they were not significant due to the miniature size of the plates and the relatively short irradiation time. In the future, the fully coupled approach presented herein will be applied to full-size fuel plates with longer irradiation cycles once additional experiments become available.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2022

University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR) LEU Fuel Fluid-Structure Interaction Analysis

The University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR ® ) is one of five U.S. high performance research reactors (USHPRR), plus one critical facility, that are actively collaborating with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Material Management and Minimization (M 3 ) Reactor Conversion Program to convert from highly enriched uranium (HEU, ≥ 20 wt.% U-235) to low-enriched uranium (LEU, < 20 wt.% U-235) fuel. A new type of LEU fuel with very high density, based on an alloy of uranium and 10 weight percent molybdenum (U-10Mo), is expected to allow the conversion to LEU of USHPRR that have been found unable to be converted with previously qualified uranium silicide-aluminum (U 3 Si 2 -Al) dispersion fuel. MURR has been working with the USHPRR Reactor Conversion (RC) Pillar at Argonne National Laboratory to perform fuel element design and fuel cycle performance analyses, steady-state thermal hydraulics safety analyses, and accident safety analyses in preparation for the conversion of MURR and to support a preliminary Safety Analysis Report (SAR) for conversion to LEU fuel. In this work, Fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis at the fuel element level, as compared to the fuel plate level of the previous work. is performed which models all components of the MURR LEU fuel element, including fuel plates and the supporting structures e.g., side plates, end fittings, and combs. Therefore, the effect of supporting structures on the coolant flow distribution, the fuel plate deflection, and the resulting coolant channel gap reduction can be evaluated. In addition to the nominal element geometry and flow rate, the tolerances in the geometry dimensions of coolant channel and plate thickness, the effect of a comb on plate deflection, and the uncertainty of the flow rate per element are considered in this work. The effect of comb on plate displacement is quantified through two bounding cases: the case assuming a perfect bond between the comb and plates and the case neglecting the comb effect. Note that in this analysis, the FSI has been decoupled from the other structural effects caused by irradiation (e.g., swelling and irradiation creep). Assessment of combined effects is planned for a later stage of this project.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Evaluation of RANS vs. LES simulation of fluid flow through 3 × 3 rod bundle with a simple spacer grid as a precursor to coupled fluid–structure interaction simulations

The research literature on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) of coolant flow through rod bundles with spacer-grids and mixing vanes is replete, ranging from high fidelity Large Eddy Simulation (LES)/Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) simulations to Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) modeled studies. The mixing of flow between subchannels and the pressure drop through the bundle are fundamental quantities useful for comparing and evaluating CFD methods. Less commonly observed and compared are the forces exerted onto the structure by the fluid. The present study seeks to evaluate the use of RANS simulations for predicting the structural response to fluid flow. Wall resolved RANS simulations are benchmarked against LES simulations of fluid flow at a Reynolds number of 15,000 through a 3 × 3 fuel rod bundle with a simple spacer grid. Velocity line-plots are compared showing good agreement between RANS and LES results, ascertaining that the former is capable of capturing the essential time-averaged velocity profile. Additionally, the distribution of forces on the spacer grid and fuel rods are collected as a function of time and space. The RANS methods are evaluated using the frequency and magnitude of the fluctuating forces on various portions of the structure as compared to LES. In conclusion, the power spectral density evaluation of the models reveal underprediction of force amplitude on the rod walls by RANS and also discrepancy in the prediction of high frequency spectra, especially in the immediate vicinity of spacer-grid structure, which may be attributed to the lack of random turbulence fluctuation or insufficient modeling of small-scale eddies in RANS simulation.

FIV↗
DOE OSTI2023

Coupling hydrodynamics to a rigid-body motion solver for fluid-structure interaction [Slides]

Quinoa is a massively parallel computational fluid dynamics with multi-material and programmed burn capabilities developed from Programmatic and LDRD funds. Overset is a well-established method of using an “inset” mesh that communicates with a background mesh. Solutions transfer freely from one to another and operate as boundary conditions on the opposite mesh. Either mesh can move at specified velocity! This project couples the existing Mesh-to-mesh transfer with Quinoa and demonstrates use of resulting Overset solver in computational simulation of blast effects on a re-entry body for survivability assessments.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Time-periodic steady-state solution of fluid-structure interaction and cardiac flow problems through multigrid-reduction-in-time

In this study, a time-periodic MGRIT algorithm is proposed as a means to reduce the time-to-solution of numerical algorithms by exploiting the time periodicity inherent to many applications in science and engineering. The time-periodic MGRIT algorithm is applied to a variety of linear and nonlinear single- and multiphysics problems that are periodic-in-time. It is demonstrated that the proposed parallel-in-time algorithm can obtain the same time-periodic steady-state solution as sequential time-stepping. It is shown that the required number of MGRIT iterations can be estimated a priori and that the new MGRIT variant can significantly and consistently reduce the time-to-solution compared to sequential time-stepping, irrespective of the number of dimensions, linear or nonlinear PDE models, single-physics or coupled problems and the employed computing resources. The numerical experiments demonstrate that the time-periodic MGRIT algorithm enables a greater level of parallelism yielding faster turnaround, and thus, facilitating more complex and more realistic problems to be solved.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2021

Highly Accurate Experimental Heave Decay Tests with a Floating Sphere: A Public Benchmark Dataset for Model Validation of Fluid–Structure Interaction

Highly accurate and precise heave decay tests on a sphere with a diameter of 300 mm were completed in a meticulously designed test setup in the wave basin in the Ocean and Coastal Engineering Laboratory at Aalborg University, Denmark. The tests were dedicated to providing a rigorous benchmark dataset for numerical model validation. The sphere was ballasted to half submergence, thereby floating with the waterline at the equator when at rest in calm water. Heave decay tests were conducted, wherein the sphere was held stationary and dropped from three drop heights: a small drop height, which can be considered a linear case, a moderately nonlinear case, and a highly nonlinear case with a drop height from a position where the whole sphere was initially above the water. The precision of the heave decay time series was calculated from random and systematic standard uncertainties. At a 95% confidence level, uncertainties were found to be very low—on average only about 0.3% of the respective drop heights. Physical parameters of the test setup and associated uncertainties were quantified. A test case was formulated that closely represents the physical tests, enabling the reader to do his/her own numerical tests. The paper includes a comparison of the physical test results to the results from several independent numerical models based on linear potential flow, fully nonlinear potential flow, and the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations. A high correlation between physical and numerical test results is shown. The physical test results are very suitable for numerical model validation and are public as a benchmark dataset.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

A Higher Order, Stable Partitioned Scheme for Fluid-Structure Interaction Problems

Although still a very active area of research with many open questions, there exist highly-accurate and efficient algorithms for numerically estimating solutions to the equations of fluid motion. Similarly, great strides have been made in numerically modeling the motion of solids. However, there exist many practical applications where one must solve both fluid and structure in tandem. There is a gap in the literature for high order unconditionally stable partitioned algorithms for problems of this type. We investigate a new partitioned scheme which shows promise in filling this gap. We use a finite-element-based model with an added mass approach on problems coupling the Euler beam equation with the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Fluid-structure interaction solver for transient dynamics of fracturing media

Computer implemented methods include providing a numerical simulation solid mesh comprising a plurality of solid nodes and a numerical simulation fluid mesh comprising a plurality of fluid nodes, and performing a numerical simulation with the solid mesh and fluid mesh including: determining a fluid-solid interaction between the fluid mesh and the solid mesh at a time step by (i) immersing boundaries of the solid and fluid meshes, (ii) computing current corrected fluid and solid velocities using an interaction parameter applied to an intermediate fluid-solid relative velocity, and (iii) computing a fluid-solid interaction force based on the current corrected fluid and solid velocities.

Rougier, Esteban↗
DOE OSTI2020

A thin-walled composite beam model for light-weighted structures interacting with fluids

A thin-walled beam model is proposed for structures of variable cross-section, which can be either open or closed and includes multicellular cross-sections with either isotropic or orthotropic materials. The proposed model does not require any priori definition of cross-sectional warping which instead results from the solution of the problem. To achieve that a special deformation pattern is superimposed on the bending deformation described by Euler–Bernoulli beam theory. All sectional properties are automatically incorporated in the analysis as a result of the usual variational formulation of the system of equations. The proposed model is specifically designed to simulate the dynamics of wind/hydrokinetic turbine blade with low computational cost, especially in fluid–structure interaction (FSI) simulation. A number of test cases have been carried out to validate the proposed structural model which show good agreement between the results obtained her e and the solutions available in literature. Finally, FSI simulation of a hydrokinetic blade under field condition is carried out to illustrate the capability of the current thin-walled beam model in practice.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2021

MITR Low-Enriched Uranium Conversion Fluid-Structure Interaction Preliminary Design Verification

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Office of Material Management and Minimization (M 3 ) has developed and is pursuing an integrated approach to address the persistent threat posed by unintentional proliferation of nuclear materials. The NNSA M 3 approach reduces the risk of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium falling into the hands of non-state actors by minimizing the use of and, when possible, eliminating weapons-usable nuclear material around the world. In this geopolitical context, most research and test reactors, both domestic and international, have completed or started a program of conversion from the use of HEU to low-enriched uranium (LEU) as fuel. Conversion of civilian research reactors from HEU to LEU, and the return of the HEU to the country of origin, are important components of the NNSA non-proliferation program. Worldwide, 71 reactors have been converted to the use of LEU fuel, and an additional 32 have been confirmed to be permanently shut down. The U.S., with 20 reactor conversions, is among the 39 countries on six continents where conversions have occurred. With recent conversions in Ghana and Nigeria, an important milestone was reached in completing conversion of all reactors on the continent of Africa to LEU fuel. Africa thus becomes the third continent to have completed conversion of all HEU reactors to LEU, following Australia and South America

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗