Nuclear Reactor Thermal-Hydraulics: Past, Present and Future

This monograph summarizes the major developments on nuclear reactor

thermal-hydraulics over the last fifty years, primarily for the

water-cooled reactors, and provides a direction for the future thermalhydraulic

developments for water-cooled, including small modular reactors

or SMR , and Generation IV reactors. This includes discussion

on the steady-state reactor thermal hydraulics including subchannel

analysis, evolution of emergency core cooling systems (ECCS ) from active

to fully passive systems to remove the decay heat, and development

and consolidation of the best-estimate safety analysis methodology.

With substantial increase in computing power, the computational fluid

dynamics (CFD ) tools for single-phase and multi-phase flows are being

used more these days to address some of the important reactor thermalhydraulics

phenomena which could not be analyzed earlier using the

traditional one-dimensional or coarse three-dimensional analysis tools.

Development of multi-physics methodology encompassing neutronics,

thermal-hydraulics, thermal-mechanical and coolant chemistry has also

started.

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