Numerical Simulation for Frictional Loss and Local Loss of a 5*5 SMART Rod Bundle

The results showed good agreement with experimental data and/or reasonable values. However, these results were dependent on computational meshes and turbulence models and it still remains important issues in CFD analysis. The aim of present work is to assess the pressure drop in a 5*5 SMART rod bundle using 3D CFD code with various computational meshes and turbulence models. In the present work, 3D CFD code was utilized to investigate pressure drop in a SMART 5*5 rod bundle. The predicted pressure drop was strongly dependent with computational meshes and turbulence models. Based on CFD results in this study, least five of six meshes within the subchannel gap are required to get reliable result which is insensitive to the number of meshes. The friction factor predicted by k - ε model is good agreement with McAdams's correlation while SST model overestimate McAdams's correlation. However, it is difficult to judge performance of turbulence model because of lock of experimental data for a 5*5 SMART bare rod bundle. For nominal condition (Re-194,000) of SMART, SST model predict k-factor of MV and IFM grid as 1.304 and 0.748, respectively. This value is reasonable as compared with designed k-factor, 1.320 and 0.78