Gas coolant at low pressure exhibits poor heat transfer characteristics. This is an area of concern for the passive response targeted by the Generation IV GCFR design. For the first 24 hour period, the decay heat removal for the GCFR design is dependent on an actively powered blower, which also would reduce the temperature in the fuel during transients, before depending on the passive operation. Natural circulation cooling initiates when the blower is stopped for the final phase of the decay heat removal, as under forced convection the core decay heat is adequately cooled by the running blower. The ability of the coolant to flow in the reverse direction or having recirculation, when the blowers are off, necessitates more understanding of the flow behavior characteristics in the upper plenum. The work done here focuses primarily on the period after the blower has been turned off, as the core is adequately cooled when the blowers are running, thus there was no need to carry out the analysis for the first 24 hours. In order to understand the plume behavior for the GCFR upper plenum several cases were run, with air, helium and helium-air mixture. For each case, the FLUENT was used to characterize the steady state velocity vectors and corresponding temperature in the upper plenum under passive decay heat removal conditions. This study will provide better insight into the plume interaction in the upper plenum at low flow and low pressure conditions.
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