6. Development of heat transfer enhancement technique for high-power density nuclear fuel

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June 18, 2015 | Project

For every engineering area, it is very important to increase the way of heat transfer to get high power levels with low cost. Especially in nuclear engineering, the design of fuel rod in nuclear core which can produce very high level power density is very important to run the nuclear plant with safety and economically. Therefore, understanding basic phenomenon of heat transfer is the main study to increase the efficiency; boiling heat transfer, flow visualization, temperature distribution, and nanofluids.
Flow visualization of nucleate boiling is important in many engineering fields because boiling mechanism can affect the safety margin of systems including nuclear power plants. Nucleate boiling is an effective method of heat transfer. However, nucleate boiling heat transfer is an empirical science which has not been justified for decades. So it is very important to measure the nucleate boiling phenomenon to approach the principle of bubbles’ formation.
Understanding of temperature distribution during heat transfer is the key phenomenon to remove the heat effectively because we can analyze the area where the maximum heat is distributed. LIF (Laser Induced Fluorescence) and IR thermometry are used as techniques for analyzing temperature distribution.
Nanofluids are used to increase thermal conductivity to increase thermal margin of reactor. Different nanofluids have been studied with different experimental equipment; wire pool boiling, plate pool boiling, and flow boiling. In our lab, we try to understand and research the reason how the thermal properties of nanofluids are increased compared with base fluids.