Experimental Study of Thermal Behavior of a Single-phase Natural Circulation Loops with Vertical Heater and Cooler
Duwi Hariyanto (1)(a) and Sidik Permana (1)(2)(b)
(1) Nuclear Physics and Biophysics Research Division, Physics Department, Institut Teknologi Bandung
(2) Nuclear Science and Engineering Department, Institut Teknologi Bandung
Jl. Ganesha 10 Bandung, 40132, Indonesia
Email : (a) duwi_hariyanto[at]students.itb.ac.id, (b) psidik[at]fi.itb.ac.id
Abstract
The natural circulation loop is one of the design concepts of a cooling system in new advanced reactors that has attracted many researchers to develop it. This study aimed to perceive the effect of horizontal width variation on the thermal behavior of a single-phase natural circulation loop (NCL). NCL apparatus with a vertical heater and a vertical cooler was designed for experimental study. The height of the loop was 1.000 mm while the width of the loop was varied at 500 mm and 1.000 mm. The heater was designed using nichrome wire on the outside of the stainless pipe while the cooler was designed using pipe-in-pipe with water flowing through the annulus. Arduino microcontroller and K-type thermocouple sensors were used in temperature data acquisition. XAMPP software was used in data recording. The direction of the fluid flow was in a clockwise direction. The result in this study was the fluid temperature in a 1.000 mm width lower than the fluid temperature in a 500 mm width. This study is supposed to be one of the references for a single-phase natural circulation loop.
Keywords: natural circulation, single-phase, temperature, microcontroller, K-type thermocouple
Topic: Nuclear Science and Engineering