Numerical analysis of evolution of thermal stratification in a curved piping system

A detailed numerical analysis of the evolution of thermal stratification in a curved piping system in a nuclear power plant is performed. A finite volume based thermal-hydraulic computer code has been developed employing a body-fitted, non-orthogonal curvilinear coordinate for this purpose. The cell-centered, non-staggered grid arrangement is adopted and the resulting checkerboard pressure oscillation is prevented by the application of momentum interpolation method. The SIMPLE algorithm is employed for the pressure and velocity coupling, and the convection terms are approximated by a higher-order bounded scheme. The thermal-hydraulic computer code developed in the present study has been applied to the analysis of thermal stratification in a curved duct and some of the predicted results are compared with the available experiments data. It is shown that the predicted results agree fairly well with the experimental measurements and the transient formation of thermal stratification in a curved duct is also well predicted. (author)