Ricerc@Sapienza

In the framework of the Horizon 2020 SESAME project (thermal hydraulics Simulations and Experiments for the Safety Assessment of MEtal cooled reactors), the CIRCE pool facility has been refurbished by ENEA to host HERO test section (Heavy liquid mEtal pRessurized water cOoled tubes) with the aim to test an innovative concept of the steam generator bayonet tubes proposed for ALFRED (Advanced Lead Fast Reactor European Demonstrator) and to provide experimental data for code validation.

CIRCE is a lead–bismuth eutectic alloy (LBE) pool facility aimed to simulate the primary system of a heavy liquid metal (HLM) cooled pool-type fast reactor. The experimental facility was implemented with a new test section, called HERO (Heavy liquid mEtal pRessurized water cOoled tubes), which consists of a steam generator composed of seven double-wall bayonet tubes (DWBT) with an active length of six meters. The experimental campaign aims to investigate HERO behavior, which is representative of the tubes that will compose ALFRED SG.

In the framework of the HORIZON2020 SESAME European project (SESAME Project, EURATOM H2020, 2015), an experimental campaign has been carried out on the large LBE pool integral effect CIRCE facility at CR ENEA Brasimone (Tarantino et al., 2011). The experiments are based on the HERO Test Section installed into CIRCE (Rozzia et al., 2017), aiming at supporting the development of the ALFRED design (Frignani et al., 2017).

In the framework of Heavy Liquid Metal (HLM) GEN IV Nuclear reactor development, the focus is in the combination of security and performance. Numerical simulations with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) or system codes are useful tools to predict the main steady-state phenomena and how transitional accidents could unfold in GEN IV reactors. In this paper, to support the validation of CFD as a valid tool for the design, the capability of ANSYS CFX v15.0 to simulate and reproduce mixed natural convection and thermal stratification phenomena inside a pool is investigated.

In the frame of heavy liquid metal (HLM) technology development, CIRCE pool facility at ENEA/Brasimone Research Center was updated by installing ICE (Integral Circulation Experiments) test section which simulates the thermal behavior of a primary system in a HLM cooled pool reactor. The experimental campaign led to the characterization of mixed convection and thermal stratification in a HLM pool in safety relevant conditions and to the distribution of experimental data for the validation of CFD and system codes.