AUTHOR=Shuoting Zhang , Jianhua Dong , Zhe Zhou , Zheng Huang , Guoming Liu , Qiaoyan Chen TITLE=Application of flow and heat transfer network analysis method to the core of a prismatic gas-cooled micro reactor JOURNAL=Frontiers in Energy Research VOLUME=12 YEAR=2024 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/energy-research/articles/10.3389/fenrg.2024.1432836 DOI=10.3389/fenrg.2024.1432836 ISSN=2296-598X ABSTRACT=

The prismatic gas-cooled micro reactor core is composed of graphite prismatic blocks with gaps between them. The coolant passes through the gap to form flows that affect the flow and temperature distribution of the core. Conventionally, computational fluid dynamics methods have been used for prismatic gas-cooled reactor core analysis. However, they require considerable computational time and cost. For rapid and accurate calculation, in this study, a flow and heat transfer network analysis method is developed for evaluation of the core flow and temperature distribution. Finally, the calculated results of the flow heat transfer network analysis method are compared with the calculated results of computational fluid dynamics. The results show that the results of the flow heat transfer network analysis method are in good agreement with the results of computational fluid dynamics.