Applications of the DNS CONV-3D Code for Simulations of Liquid Metal Flows

To simulate the thermal hydraulics processes in fast reactors with a liquid metal coolant DNS CFD code CONV-3D has been developed. The paper presents the results of the application of CONV-3D code for simulation of sodium natural convection in the upper plenum of the MONJU (Japan) and BN-600 (Russia) reactor vessel, the calculation results of the experiment conducted on the Phenix facility (France) with sodium coolant. The results of simulation of heavy-liquid metal (LBE) flow and heat transfer along a hexagonal 19-rod bundle with wire spacers (KALLA, Germany) are presented also. A satisfactory agreement of the numerical predictions with experiments is demonstrated, in particular for the temperature distribution vs the coordinates. The results obtained allow to conclude that using of CONV-3D code with high predictive power can be recommended for reactor applications. (author)