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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
Ashish Sharma, Jeffrey Brown, Harindra J. S. Fernando
Nuclear Technology | Volume 174 | Number 1 | April 2011 | Pages 18-28
Technical Paper | One-Phase Fluid Flow | doi.org/10.13182/NT11-A11676
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The flow distribution in a condensate demineralizer vessel of a nuclear power plant is studied using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. The model simulates the flow through the packed resin bed installed in the vessel as well as the exit of flow through the porous resin retention assembly at the bottom of the vessel. The computational model is subsequently revised to assess the impact of a proposed modification to the retention assembly to enhance drainage of the vessel and minimize unwanted resin separation during resin bed regeneration. The subject model has been developed using the ANSYS ICEM CFD meshing tool and the FLUENT 6.3 CFD software as well as associated postprocessing tools. Comparisons of flow patterns in the vessel resin beds prior to and with the modification demonstrate a sharp increase in the flow rate at the end walls of the vessel, thus resulting in accelerated depletion of resin in high-velocity areas and nonuniform consumption of resin inventory. The computational results are also compared with a theoretical analysis of the basic process.