Thermal laminarization of a stratified pipe flow

The present work constitutes a new program that grew out of a scoping assessment by ANL to determine the propensity for pipe stratification to occur in the reactor outlet nozzles and hot-leg piping of a generic LMFBR during events producing reverse pipe flow. This paper focuses on the role that thermal buoyancy plays relative to being able to laminarize a turbulent stratified shear zone in a horizontal pipe. The preceeding can influence the behavior of a pipe stratified-backflow-recirculation zone (cold plenum water down into the hot pipe flow) which developes as the result of a temperature difference between the pipe flow and the plenum