A Coupled RELAP5-3D/STAR-CCM+ Simulation for the Calculation of Friction Factor in Pipes - 14032

The thermal hydraulic analysis of nuclear reactors is largely performed by what are known as 'System Codes'. These codes predict the flows in the complex network of pipes, pumps, vessels and heat exchangers that together form the thermal hydraulic systems of a nuclear reactor. These codes have been used for many decades, and are now very well established, and given this long process of refinement, they are able to produce remarkably accurate predictions of plant behaviour under both steady and transient conditions. Modern CFD is able to produce high-quality predictions of flows in complex geometries, but only with the use of large computing resources. It would be impractical to build a CFD model of, for example, the entire primary circuit of a PWR. However, much of the primary circuit may well be able to be modelled with adequate fidelity using a cheaper one-dimensional system code, and it may only be in a limited part of the circuit that full three-dimensional effects are important. In this paper, the coupling tool present in the STAR-CCM+ v8.02 software was used, together with RELAP5-3D v4.0.3, to perform a coupled analysis of single phase flow in a circular pipe in order to evaluate Moody's friction factor. Three different cases were studied, following two different models. The first case consisted in using smooth walls for the pipe, whereas, in the second and the third ones, the roughness of the wall was set to 20 μm and 50 μm respectively. The first model consisted in using RELAP5-3D for the upstream part of the pipe and STAR-CCM+ for the downstream part. In the second model, instead, STAR-CCM+ was used for the upstream part of the pipe and RELAP5-3D for the downstream part. The results obtained with these two models have been compared with each other to check for possible incongruences. Furthermore, all the results have been compared with standalone simulations performed with RELAP5-3D and STAR-CCM+ and with experimental data (Moody's diagram). (authors)