Comparison of Test and Analytical Results on CAP1400 Reactor Flow Distributor Designs

The CAP1400 reactor internal is going to use a new component termed the “Even Flow Distributor (EFD)”, instead of the existing flow skirt (FS) design, to help distribute the incoming flow more evenly to the fuel assemblies. To verify the effect of the EFD, a scale model of the reactor and internals was built and hydraulic tests of both the EFD and the FS configurations were conducted. In addition, numerical simulations of the flow fields, using CFD, of both designs were also carried out. From the scale model test results, the overall flow distribution of EFD is better than that of the FS. The core inlet flow distribution taken from the CFD results is slightly better than that from the hydraulic test. The differences between CFD result and test results are less than 3 percent for the most of fuel assemblies, and about 5 percent for a few assemblies. Based on this study, it is concluded that the EFD is a very effective means of controlling core inlet flow distribution in a CAP1400 reactor.