The influence of ribbon holes on fuel assembly thermal hydraulic performance

Two kinds of PWR space grids, structure mixing grid (MG) and mid span mixing grid (MSMG) exist in fuel assembly. There are spring, dimple, ribbon and mixing vanes in Structure mixing grid. The ribbon with hole or without hole will influence the fuel assembly thermal-hydraulic performance. Two 5×5 rod bundle with two space girds, one is structure mixing grid, another is mid span mixing grid are analyzed using CFD method. The two calculations are different in structure mixing grid, one with holes on ribbon, the other one without holes on ribbon. The fuel rods are heated. The whole meshes are about 20 million. The result shows that the ribbon with holes increases pressure loss in space grid area. The holes' influence on temperature field and flow field are mainly observed at structure space grid downstream, near the mid span mixing grid. Though the ribbon with holes shows limit influence on temperature field, it makes the low pressure area appears around peripheral fuel rods, and the swirl near the ribbon somewhere disappear, thus bubbles are more possible to cluster near the peripheral fuel rods. For further research, two phase CFD could be used to analyze the bubble behaviors. (author)