Numerical study by large-eddy simulation on effects and mechanism of air-cooling enhancing technologies

Learning from the lessons of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear incident in which a long-term station black-out occurred, we have been developing an air-cooling system for boiling water reactors that can operate without electricity for a virtually indefinite time. Improvement in the heat transfer performance of air-cooling is key to the development of the air-cooling system. We developed air-cooling enhancing technologies for the air-cooling system by using heat transfer fins, turbulence-enhancing ribs and a micro-fabrication surface. In our previous study, the performance of these air-cooling enhancing technologies was evaluated by heat transfer tests using a single pipe of the air-cooling heat exchanger. To achieve further improvement of the heat transfer performance, it is important to understand the mechanism of the air-cooling enhancing technologies. In this study, we used the numerical analysis which is based on the filtered incompressible Navier-Stokes equation and the filtered energy equation with the large-eddy simulation in order to investigate the effects and the mechanism of the developed air-cooling enhancing technologies. We found that the analysis results agreed well with the experimental results and the empirical formula results. The heat transfer enhancement mechanism of the heat transfer fin is due to an increase in the heat transfer area. Due to a decrease in the flow velocity at the base of the fins, the increase in the Nusselt number was approximately 15% smaller than the estimated value from the area increase. In the heat transfer enhancement by the turbulence-enhancing ribs, the unsteady behavior of the large-scale vortex generated by the flow separation plays an important role. The enhancement ratio of the Nusselt number by the micro-fabrication surface can be explained by the apparent thermal conductivity. The Nusselt number was increased 4-8% by the micro-fabrication surface. The effect of the micro-fabrication surface is increased by applying it on the fin surface in addition to the pipe surface. For the combination of the micro-fabrication surface and the turbulence-enhancing ribs, the interaction between the better heat transport in the thermally-conductive layer and the mixing effect by the large-scale vortex is the heat transfer enhancement mechanism. (author)