Numerical solutions of Reeks-Hall equation for particulate concentration in recirculating turbulent fluid flow

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Source term is an important issue in safety assessment of nuclear power plants. Therefore, modeling of particulate concentration in reactor coolant systems during normal operation and hypothesized or real accidents is of continuing interest. We report here on exploration of a numerical solution of the Reeks and Hall equation with the use of fractional resuspension rate in its original integral form. The numerical results for particulate concentration are compared with those obtained from the exact expression given by Williams and experimental data provided by Wells et al. The numerical results agree very well with exact results and also agree well with the data of Wells et al. Applications of numerical method to problems with time dependent resuspension rate (for which exact solutions are not available), are explored and some typical results are reported. Research is carried out for three related resuspension models: Reeks, Reed, and Hall (1988), Vainshtein et al (1997), and Rock 'n Roll (2001). Results from Rock 'n Roll model show some advantages over the other two models. Since the advanced numerical technique we used may not be entirely suitable for use in large integrated computed codes, we have also explored use of a first order finite difference scheme for solving the Reeks-Hall equation. This first order scheme is sensitive to time-step size, but can work in some cases.