Heat Transfer Analysis in Supercritical Hydrogen of Decoupled Poisoned Hydrogen Moderator with Non-Uniform Heat Source of Chinese Spallation Neutron Source

The flow field distribution and thermal properties of supercritical hydrogen are crucial factors affecting the quality of neutrons output from spallation neutron source, which may contribute to the optimization design of the moderator. Several sensitivity studies on affecting heat transfer characteristics of liquid hydrogen inside a moderator were executed, and a choice was made to use a computational fluid dynamics method for numerical simulation. The sensitivity degree of factors affecting the heat transfer characteristics of liquid hydrogen are in sequence of inlet mass flow, beam power and operating pressure. Especially when the beam power is 500 kW (the temperature range of liquid hydrogen is about 20~30 K); where the effect of mass flow rate is remarkable, the cooling effect is best in the range of 60~90 g/s × 394 mm2. Meanwhile, the maximum temperature of liquid hydrogen is close to the bottom recirculation zone due to the influence of the flow field and the heat deposition distribution of the poisoned plate. The effect of variable pressure on the temperature of liquid hydrogen is not significant, whereas the sudden rise of wall temperature is observed near the large specific heat region of 15 bar.