Coupled problems in transient fluid and structural dynamics in nuclear engineering: Part 1: Safety problems solved by flow singularity methods

Some important problems in coupled fluid-structural dynamics which occur in safety investigations of liquid metal fast breeder reactors (LMFBR), light water reactors and nuclear reprocessing plants are discussed and a classification of solution methods is introduced. A distinction is made between the step by step solution procedure, where available computer codes in fluid and structural dynamics are coupled, and advanced simultaneous solution methods, where the coupling is carried out at the level of the fundamental equations. Results presented include the transient deformation of a two-row pin bundle surrounded by an infinite fluid field, vapour explosions in a fluid container and containment distortions due to bubble collapse in the pressure suppression system of a boiling water reactor. A recently developed simultaneous solution method is presented in detail. Here the fluid dynamics (inviscid, incompressible fluid) is described by a singularity method which reduces the three-dimensional fluid dynamics problem to a two-dimensional formulation. In this way the three-dimensional fluid dynamics as well as the structural (shell) dynamics can be described essentially by common unknowns at the fluid-structural interface. The resulting equations for the coupled fluid-structural dynamics are analogous to the equations of motion of the structural dynamics alone.