Thermal hydraulics of accelerator-driven system windowless targets

The study of the fluid dynamics of the windowless spallation target of an accelerator-driven system (ADS) is presented. Several target mockup configurations have been investigated: the first one was a symmetrical target, which was made by two concentric cylinders and the other configurations are not symmetrical. In the experiments, water has been used as hydraulic equivalent to lead–bismuth eutectic fluid. The experiments have been carried out at room temperature and flow rate up to 24 kg/s. The fluid velocity components have been measured by an ultrasound technique. The velocity field of the liquid within the target region either for the approximately axial–symmetrical configuration or for the not symmetrical ones as a function of the flow rate and the initial liquid level is presented. A comparison of experimental data with the prediction of the finite volume FLUENT code is also presented. Moreover, the results of a 2D–3D numerical analysis that investigates the effect on the steady state thermal and flow fields due to the insertion of guide vanes in the windowless target unit (TU) of the EFIT project ADS nuclear reactor are presented, by analyzing both the cold flow case (absence of power generation) and the hot flow case (nominal power generation inside the TU).