CFD Analysis of Heat Transfer in Low Prandtl Number Fluid Flows

Abstract

Use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code is helpful for designing liquid metal cooled nuclear reactor systems. Before using any CFD code proper evaluation of the code is essential for simulation of heat transfer in liquid metal flow. In this paper, a review of the literature on the correlations for liquid metal heat transfer is carried out and a comparison with experimental results is performed. CFD analysis is carried out using PHOENICS-3.6 code on heat transfer in molten Lead Bismuth Eutectic (LBE) flowing through tube. Turbulent flow analyses are carried out for the evaluation of the CFD code. The CFD results are compared with the available correlations. Assessment of various turbulence models and correlations for turbulent Prandtl number in the tube geometry are carried out. From the analysis it is found that, the CFD prediction can be improved with modified turbulent Prandtl number in the turbulence models.