Numerical analysis of two experiments related to thermal fatigue

• Main Authors: Ulrich Bieder, Paolo Errante
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2017-06-01
• Series: Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• Subjects: Turbulence; Thermal Fatigue; LES; CFD; TrioCFD
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1738573317300864

Jets in cross flow are of fundamental industrial importance and play an important role in validating turbulence models. Two jet configurations related to thermal fatigue phenomena are investigated: • T-junction of circular tubes where a heated jet discharges into a cold main flow and • Rectangular jet marked by a scalar discharging into a main flow in a rectangular channel. The T-junction configuration is a classical test case for thermal fatigue phenomena. The Vattenfall T-junction experiment was already subject of an OECD/NEA benchmark. A LES modelling and calculation strategy is developed and validated on this data. The rectangular-jet configuration is important for basic physical understanding and modelling and has been analyzed experimentally at CEA. The experimental work was focused on turbulent mixing between a slightly heated rectangular jet which is injected perpendicularly into the cold main flow of a rectangular channel. These experiments are analyzed for the first time with LES. The overall results show a good agreement between the experimental data and the CFD calculation. Mean values of velocity and temperature are well captured by both RANS calculation and LES. The range of critical frequencies and their amplitudes, however, are only captured by LES.