Experiments on heat transfer in rod-bundle flows as supercritical pressures

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The proposed research is in support of the Canadian National Program on Generation IV Energy Technologies for the development of a Super Critical Water-cooled Reactor (SCWR), which, compared to existing nuclear reactors, is expected to have increased safety, lower-cost electricity production, more compact size and reduced volume of nuclear wastes. The main objective of this research is to quantify the following three important effects on the heat transfer in flows in a three-rod bundle under near-critical and supercritical pressures: i) effect of flow direction, namely downflow vs. upflow; ii) effect of wire wrap spacers; and iii) effect of transients in pressure, mass flux and heat flux. These effects have not been investigated previously for conditions relevant to SCWRs; they need to be quantified in order to improve the SCWRs safety analysis codes and thus make their prediction of thermal behaviour of the SCWR fuel during normal and accidental conditions more realistic. All experimental investigations will be performed in the University of Ottawa's supercritical loop with carbon dioxide as a surrogate fluid.