An optimized anisotropic pressure fluctuation model for the simulation of turbulence-induced vibrations

A significant aspect of the economic performance and safety of a nuclear reactor involves maintaining the integrity of the fuel rods, which are susceptible to Turbulence-Induced Vibrations (TIV) resulting from the axial flow of the coolant. TIV can instigate severe repercussions, including structural damage such as fatigue and wear. TIV can be studied numerically, using Fluid–Structure Interaction( FSI) simulations. However, high-resolution approaches are computationally too expensive to use for complex FSI simulations, while Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) simulations severely underpredict the displacement amplitudes of the vibrations as they only resolve the mean flow. Evolving from this shortfall, this paper focuses on a recently developed Anisotropic Pressure Fluctuation Model (AniPFM). This model generates a synthetic velocity fluctuations field, which is used to solve for the pressure fluctuations. Using this model, together with URANS, is a possible way to simulate the excitation mechanisms of TIV of fuel rods in a computationally cheaper way. While previous research has highlighted the potential of this model, there are parameters, definitions, and constants whose impacts on the model are not yet fully understood. Therefore, a comprehensive effort is undertaken to fine-tune the model, optimize its performance, improve understanding of it and further validate it. This is done by applying AniPFM to both pure flow and FSI cases, using high-resolution numerical and experimental data as reference and for comparison. With the optimized model, a substantial decrease in average difference from the experimental data is found for the FSI case under consideration, when compared with the unoptimized version of AniPFM.