Full Scale Thermo-hydraulic Simulation of a Helium-Helium Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger

In this paper, the thermo-hydraulic full scale simulation is performed to study the temperature distributions, thermal stress, pressure drop and outlet temperature in a Helium-Helium printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) in a VHTR simulate helium loop. The entire PCHE is composed of 40 stacks of rectangular shaped micro-channels for helium gas [type A] (inlet temperature, 400 .deg. C) and 40 stacks of semi-ellipse shaped micro-channels for helium [type B] (inlet temperature, 300 .deg. C). The experimental result is compared to that of computer simulation, COMSOL multi-physics software. The Helium-Helium PCHE is considered a prototype of the newly developed PCHE by Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI). The full scale thermo-hydraulic simulation was successfully performed to obtain temperature distribution, pressure drop and thermal stress in 40 sets of flow channel stacks in a helium-helium printed circuit heat exchanger in a VHTR simulate helium loop. We obtained a quite similar temperature distribution with the 3D measured infrared temperature distribution. To our knowledge, this is the first full scale numerical study on the PCHE, which considers all microchannels, that the convection effect on the outside surfaces of the PCHE is applied. The very high-temperature reactor (VHTR) or high-temperature gas-cooled reactor(HTGR) is a fourth-generation nuclear power reactor that uses the ceramic coated fuel, TRISO, in which the fission gas does not leak even at temperatures higher than 1600 .deg. C. The VHTR necessarily requires an intermediate loop composed of a hot gas duct (HGD), an intermediate heat exchanger (IHX) and a process heat exchanger (PHE). The IHX is one of the important components of VHTR system because the IHX transfers the 950 .deg. C of high temperature massive heat to a hydrogen production plant or power conversion unit at high system pressure