Effect of graphite dust abrasion on helium circulator impeller in high temperature gas cooled reactor

The operation of the helium circulator is crucial to the safety of High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactor (HTGR) due to the potential erosion from graphite dust. Therefore, the present study focuses on the erosion effect of particle on the rotated impeller blade of helium circulator. The SST k-ω turbulence model is adopted to calculate the helium flow and pressure. Based on the steady flow field, the particles are injected into the domain and discrete phase model is adopted to simulate particle track. The erosion model predicts the erosion rate density under the interaction between particles and helium. The distribution of particle erosion shows that most particle collide on the pressure surface and only small particle (<1μm) may hit on the suction surface. In addition, max erosion rate density decreases first and then increases when particle diameter increases in the range of micron scale. (author)