On the Development of a Novel Acoustic Flowmeter for High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors

Abstract

Measuring the flow rate in High-Temperature Gas-cooled Reactors is a challenge for traditional flowmeters due to the high flow rate (10 to 15 m/s at nominal operating conditions), high operating temperatures (>700°C), and high neutron flux and gamma fields in the reactor core. This paper discusses developing a novel flowmeter that can work under these extreme conditions. Oak Ridge National Laboratory first proposed using acoustics to measure the flow in the reactor, more specifically, using a Kelvin-Helmholtz resonator to correlate the gas flow rate with vibration frequency. With the primary goal of developing an acoustic measurement technique, we propose an acoustic corrugated pipe as a candidate for the development of a novel gas flowmeter. Experimental investigations on corrugated pipes have confirmed the dependence of the whistling frequency on the gas flow rate. Also, a tube-in-tube configuration is proposed for the flowmeter prototype, which can help mitigate resonance between the system and the flowmeter. Experimental investigation using the prototype has shown good independence from the piping system. Furthermore, Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) simulations have been performed and validated with a satisfactory agreement, providing confidence that URANS models can adequately predict the characteristic curve (flow rate versus frequency) of the corrugated pipe and can therefore be used to optimize the flowmeter designs cost-effectively.

Keywords:

• HTGRs
• acoustics
• flowmeter
• URANS

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to extend their gratitude to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for financially supporting this research.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.