Effect of bend curvature ratio on flow pattern at a mixing tee after a 90 degree bend

Abstract

Many nuclear power plants report high cycle thermal fatigue in their cooling system, caused by temperature fluctuation in a non-isothermal mixing area. One of these areas is the T-junction, in which fluids of various temperatures and velocities blend. The objective of this research is to classify turbulent jet mechanics in order to examine the flow-field structure under various operating conditions. Furthermore, this research discovers the optimum operating conditions of the mixing tee in this piping system. An experimental model, including the T-junction with a 90 degree bend upstream, is operated to analyze this mixing phenomenon based on the real operation design of the Phenix Reactor. The temperature and velocity data show that a 90 degree bend has a strong effect on the fluid mixing mechanism and the momentum ratio between the main velocity and the branch velocity of the T-junction, which could be an important parameter for the classification of the fluid mixing mechanism. By comparing their mean velocity distributions, velocity fluctuations and time-series data, the behavior of the branch jet is categorized into four types of turbulent jets; sorted from the highest to the lowest momentum ratios, the jets are categorized as follows: the wall jet, the re-attached jet, the turn jet, and the impinging jet. Ultimately, the momentum ration of the turn jet was selected as the optimum