Nano fluid application as a coolant in High performance light water Reactor(HPLWR)

The present article is a thermal–hydraulic analysis of the nanofluid in HPLWR fuel assembly. The High-Performance Light Water Reactor (HPLWR) is the European version of the Supercritical-pressure Water Cooled Reactor (SCWR). Light water reactors at supercritical pressure, being currently under design, are the new generation of nuclear reactors. Supercritical water cooled reactors (HPLWR & SCWR) are essentially light water reactors (LWRs) operating at higher pressure and temperature. HPLWRs achieve high thermal efficiency (i.e., about 45% vs. about 35% efficiency for advanced LWRs) and are simpler plants as the need for many of the traditional LWR components.The governing equations include energy, mass and momentum equations beside thermal–hydraulic equations are solved numerically using the finite volume (upwind) method. Thermal hydraulic results using nanofluid in coolant and moderator channel are discussed and compared to pure water results. The achieved results show that the Al2O3 with volume fraction less than 0.1 percent is the optimum case.