V&V Of CFD Modeling Of The Argonne Bubble Experiment: FY15 Summary Report

In support of the development of accelerator-driven production of the fission product Mo 99, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of an electron-beam irradiated, experimental-scale bubble chamber have been conducted in order to aid in interpretation of existing experimental results, provide additional insights into the physical phenomena, and develop predictive thermal hydraulic capabilities that can be applied to full-scale target solution vessels. Toward that end, a custom hybrid Eulerian-Eulerian-Lagrangian multiphase solver was developed, and simulations have been performed on high-resolution meshes. Good agreement between experiments and simulations has been achieved, especially with respect to the prediction of the maximum temperature of the uranyl sulfate solution in the experimental vessel. These positive results suggest that the simulation methodology that has been developed will prove to be suitable to assist in the development of full-scale production hardware.