CFD analysis of the dynamic behaviour of a fuel rod subchannel in a supercritical water reactor with point kinetics

The paper presents the analysis by a CFD code of coupled neutronic–thermal hydraulic instabilities in a subchannel slice belonging to a square lattice assembly. The work represents a further phase in the assessment of the suitability of CFD codes for studies of flow stability of supercritical fluids; the research started in previous work with the analysis of bare 2D circular pipes and already addressed 3D subchannel slices with no allowance for heat conduction or neutronic effects. In the present phase, a more realistic system is considered, dealing with a slice of a fuel assembly subchannel containing the regions of the pellet, the gap and the cladding and including also the effect of inlet and outlet throttling. The adopted neutronic model is a point kinetics one, including six delayed neutron groups with global Doppler and fluid density feedbacks. The response of the model to perturbations applied starting from a steady-state condition at the rated power is compared with that of a similar model developed for a 1D system code. Upward, horizontal and downward flow orientations are addressed making use of a uniform power profile and changing relevant parameters as the gap equivalent conductance and the density reactivity coefficient. A bottom-peaked power profile is also considered in the case of vertical upward flow. Though the adopted model can still be considered simple in comparison with actual details of fuel assemblies, the obtained results demonstrate the potential of the adopted methodology for more accurate analyses to be made with larger computational resources.