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Vibration excitation of liquid metal core technology has become an important research direction of the nuclear industry in recent years. Due to its superior thermal performance, liquid metal coolant is more suitable for making 7 small modular reactors (SMRs) under high temperature and large power. The technology of preparing liquid metal nuclear core is mature, but the current study is mainly based on the experimental basis. The excited vibration of liquid metal cooled core will have an impact on the sustainable development in the nuclear industry. Additionally, the excitation of liquid metal core leads to the shrinking of active core region and its geometry complexity.
The development of new liquid metal core technologies requires a comprehensive understanding of various phenomena in the core. The fundamental vibration characteristics of liquid metal cooled core are the key to ensuring the safe operation of the core. With the advancement of high-performance computing technology, it has become possible to simulate the behavior of the liquid metal cooled core at the thermodynamic, mechanical and acoustic level. In the near future, vibration excitation of liquid metal nuclear core can be studied in detail based on high-performance computing simulation.
The research related to the vibration excitation of liquid metal cooled core mainly includes the following aspects. Firstly, the thermal-hydraulic effect on the vibration of the liquid metal cooled core must be taken into consideration. In this case, the interaction between the coolant flow and the vibration of the core must be comprehensively studied. Secondly, the liquid thermal inertia and vaporous behavior need to be analyzed in order to investigate the dynamic behavior such as core movement. Thirdly, the dynamic analysis of vibration intensity and frequency needs to be done when the nuclear core is subjected to changes in prevailing conditions such as temperature and heat flux. Lastly, the dynamic behavior of the core under continuous operation should be comprehensively simulated.
The research on the vibration excitation of liquid metal cooled core requires extensive computing resources and accuracy. Different research approaches need to be taken to simulate the vibration excitation of various nuclear cores. For example, the thermal-hydraulic model can be developed by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) or computational structural dynamics (CSD) simulation. In addition, the acoustic waves in the flow field of the coolant can be monitored by the numerical methods of finite element analysis (FEA). Moreover, the response of a non-linear coupled system of liquid metal cooled core can be studied by numerical simulations.
In conclusion, the vibration excitation of liquid metal cooled core is an important research direction for the nuclear industry. To achieve a sustainable development of this research area, the underlying physical characteristics and numerically simulated models should be thoroughly studied. In addition, high-performance computing technology should be fully utilized to investigate the vibration excitation of the liquid metal cooled core.
