High-temperature structural analysis modeling on the small-scale PCHE prototype

Recently, a nuclear hydrogen production is gathering worldwide attention since it can produce hydrogen, a promising energy carrier, without an environment burden. The nuclear hydrogen program in Republic of Korea (ROK) is strongly considered to produce hydrogen by Sulfur-Iodine water-split hydrogen production processes. An intermediate loop that transports the nuclear heat to the hydrogen production process is necessitated for the nuclear hydrogen program as shown in Fig. 1. In the intermediate loop, the IHX (Intermediate Heat Exchanger) of VHTR (Very High Temperature Reactor) transfers the high heat of 950 .deg. C generated from the VHTR to a hydrogen production plant through a Hot Gas Duct. A PCHE (Printed Circuit Heat Exchanger) is considered as a candidate of the IHX of the nuclear hydrogen system in ROK. Recently, KAERI (Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) established the small-scale gas loop for the performance test of VHTR components as shown in Fig. 2 and manufactured a small-scale prototype of PCHE in order to be tested in the gas loop. In this study, in order to investigate the macroscopic structural characteristics and behavior of the PCHE prototype under the test condition of the gas loop, FE (finite element) modeling, thermal analysis, and structural analysis on the PCHE prototype are conducted