In order to provide a reliable tool for thermal-hydraulic simulation of pebble bed high temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs), a two-dimensional model was developed based on the porous media model and user-defined scalar (UDS) function of FLUENT software. Then, the model was applied to the numerical simulation of the shutdown test of the 10 MW high temperature gas-cooled test reactor (HTR-10) at 9 MW power level, and the temperature distribution and flow field distribution in the reactor were obtained and compared with the results of the experimental data. The reliability of the model in this paper was verified. Based on the model, the effects of the water-cooled panel temperature and the initial core temperature on the thermal-hydraulic characteristics of HTR-10 after shutdown were further explored. The results show that there is a decoupling phenomenon between the residual heat transfer within the core and the heat dissipation of the pressure vessel. The initial core temperature has relatively little effect on the heat dissipation and maximum temperature of the pressure vessel, but it has a significant impact on the thermal characteristics of the core area.