Structural Design and Dynamic Analysis of the Heat Exchanger Used in Nuclear Fuel Test Loop

Abstract The heat exchanger was required to cool the high temperature and high pressure primary water from the test chamber of the nuclear fuel test loop generated by test fuel assembly. The heat exchanger was composed of shell-tube heat exchanger group and double-pipe heat exchanger group, the regenerative structure was adopted to greatly reduce the thermal stress caused by the large temperature difference between primary water and secondary water, and the long-term safe and stable operation of the device was ensured, the establishment of 3D analysis model and dynamic analysis of the heat exchanger were carried out in the paper, stress strength of the heat exchanger by different loads under design condition, normal condition, abnormal condition, accident condition and test condition were obtained, stress strength assessment for the heat exchanger structure based on RCC-M specification design and construction rules for mechanical components of PWR nuclear island was also carried out, the results indicate that the strength of the heat exchanger satisfied requirements of every RCC-M level.