Large Eddy Simulation of turbulent flow in wire wrapped fuel pin bundles cooled by sodium

The objective of the study is to understand the thermal hydraulics in a core sub-assembly with liquid sodium as coolant by performing detailed numerical simulations. The passage for the coolant flow between the fuel rods is maintained by thin wires wrapped around the rods. The contact point between the fuel pin and the spacer wire is the region of creation of hot spots and a cyclic variation of temperature in hot spots can adversely affect the mechanical properties of the clad due to the phenomena like thermal stripping. The current status quo provides two different models to perform the numerical simulations, namely Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) and Large Eddy Simulation (LES). The two models differ in the extent of modelling used to close the Navier-Stokes equations. LES is a filtered approach where the large scale of motions are explicitly resolved while the small scale motions are modelled whereas RANS is a time averaging approach where all scale of motions are modelled. Thus LES involves less modelling as compared to RANS and so the results are comparatively more accurate. An attempt has been made to use the LES model. The simulations have been performed using the code Trio-U (developed by CEA). The turbulent statistics of the flow and thermal quantities are calculated. Finally the goal is to obtain the frequency of temperature oscillations at the region of hot spots near the spacer wire.