CFD Modeling of a Full Clogging Event in a Pumping Station With Neptune_cfd Solver: A Preliminary Investigation

Abstract The drum screen filters the water upstream of the pumping station of a NPP to protect it from debris entrance. These devices can be damaged in case of full clogging events because of drum deformation or air aspiration in the pumps located downstream of the filter. With climate change and the contingency to face more clogging events, EDF has lately tried to estimate their impact on pumping stations by different manners. The focus was set on passive filtration (static filter with no cleaning system) to reduce the complexity of the modelling and the objective is to determine how long it would take for the water level downstream of the filter to reach a hazardous level. To study such cases numerically, it is necessary to select the appropriate physical models which are able to simulate the physical phenomena while minimizing code developments. In this context, a first attempt with code_saturne highlighted the necessity of a two-phase flow code to simulate an industrial application, which was confirmed by a second attempt with neptune_cfd. In order to ensure the reliability of the results it is now required to validate the code on simpler problems where experimental data are available. This preliminary investigation shows that a development of the deposition model is still necessary to use a lagrangian method for particle transport and deposit in neptune_cfd.