A multi-elbow piping system is adopted for the Japan sodium-cooled fast reactor (JSFR) cold-legs. Flow-induced vibration (FIV) is considered to appear due to complex turbulent flow with very high Reynolds number in the piping. In this study, pressure measurement for a single elbow flow is conducted to elucidate pressure fluctuation characteristics originated from turbulent motion in the elbow, which lead potentially to the FIV. Two different scale models, 1/7- and 1/14-scale simulating the JSFR cold-leg piping, are tested experimentally to confirm whether a scale effect in pressure fluctuation characteristics exists. A distinguishing peak can be seen in each power spectrum density (PSD) profile of pressure fluctuation obtained in and downstream of the flow separation region for both scaled models. When nondimensionalized, the PSD profiles show good correspondence regardless of scale model and even of Reynolds number simulated in this study.

Issue Section:
Flows in Complex Systems
Keywords:
fission reactor cooling, flow measurement, flow separation, flow simulation, fluctuations, liquid metal fast breeder reactors, pipe flow, turbulence, fast reactor, cold-leg piping, elbow flow, flow-induced vibration, flow separation, pressure fluctuation
Topics:
Flow (Dynamics), Flow separation, Pressure, Turbulence, Pipes, Pressure measurement, Sodium fast reactors
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