DOI: 10.1615/ICHMT.2012.ProcSevIntSympTurbHeatTransfPal
ISBN Print: 978-1-56700-302-4
ISSN: 2377-2816
The effect of RANS turbulence modeling on numerical analysis of flowmeter accuracy
SINOPSIS
The present paper aims at drawing up recommendations for choosing appropriate turbulence models and near wall treatment to well describe flow characteristics through the orifice plate in the auxiliary feedwater system (AFWS) of nuclear power plant. Six different types of RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes) turbulence models and two types of near wall treatment were evaluated using commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code, Fluent v.6.2. Additionally, the influence on accuracy of flow rate under position of the orifice flowmeter in AFWS was investigated by analyzing the characteristics of turbulent flow through the orifice. In this preliminary study, the realizable k-ε and Reynolds stress model with the enhanced wall treatment were suitable for analyzing flow characteristics near orifice plate, and the results had a good agreement with experimental data. And the current installation of the orifice flowmeter in AFWS needs a more straight upstream pipeline, which is more than 30D, to avoid the flow disturbance which can cause the distortion in the velocity profile and to measure accurate flow rates.