A uidsolid nite element method for the analysis of

reactor safety problems

Santanu Mitra
*
, Ashutosh Kumar, K.P. Sinhamahapatra
Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Khapagpur, 721302, India
Received 27 September 2005; received in revised form 21 February 2006; accepted 21 February 2006
Available online 27 April 2006
Abstract
The work presented herein can broadly be categorized as a uidstructure interaction problem. The response of a circular cylin-
drical structure subjected to cross ow is examined using the nite element method for both the liquid and the structure domains. The
cylindrical tube is mounted elastically at the ends and is free to move under the action of the unsteady ow-induced forces. The uid
is considered to be acoustic compressible and viscous. A Galerkin nite element method implemented on a triangular mesh is used to
solve the time-dependent NavierStokes equations. The cylinder motion is modeled using a ve-degrees of freedom generalized shell
element structural dynamics model. The numerical simulations of the response of the calandria tubes/pressure tubes, adjustor rod and
shut-o rod of a nuclear reactor are presented. A few typical results are presented to assess the accuracy and applicability of the devel-
oped modules.
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
When a structure is immersed in a cross ow, the uid
motion can excite the structure to vibrate. This phenom-
enon caused by an unsteady uid ow is known as
ow-induced vibration (Chen, 1987). This kind of vibra-
tions may cause damages and even failures in the event
of resonance, when the vortex shedding frequency of the
uid ow and the natural frequency of the structure coin-
cide. The ow-induced vibration potential of structures
has been known for a long time and the problem occurs
in many engineering designs such as heat exchangers,
overhead power cables, bridges and tall buildings, etc.
FIV analyses are required to determine the adequacy of
a design, and to be aware of the need for experimental
verication for certainty. Semi-empirical correlations
based on experimental data often form the basis of design
and many experimental studies had been carried out.
However, much less numerical studies have been made
because of the complexity of the problems. But, serious
concerted eort is essential to develop suitable numerical
methods, which would be useful to understand the physics
more clearly and to minimize the need of expensive exper-
iments. Also, experiments may not even be possible if the
component is already installed in a sophisticated plant.
The present work was initiated as a rst step towards this
complex problem.
Computational methods are widely used to simulate the
problems of uid ow past blu bodies. The time depen-
dent NavierStokes equations can be solved to determine
the unsteady uid forces and will be capable of simulating
all the mechanisms that may be present based on the form
of the equations and the method of solution selected. Var-
ious numerical techniques such as boundary element
method (BEM), nite dierence method (FDM), nite
volume method (FVM), spectral method and nite ele-
ment method (FEM) are employed to study the ow eld
depending upon the computational resources available.
Chan et al. (2000) have developed a numerical model based
on the surface vorticity method, which makes use of
0306-4549/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2006.02.011
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 3222 281306; fax: +91 3222 282242.
E-mail addresses: rssmitra@aero.iitkgp.ernet.in, aero_mitra@yahoo.
com (S. Mitra), kalyanps@aero.iitkgp.ernet.in (K.P. Sinhamahapatra).
www.elsevier.com/locate/anucene
Annals of Nuclear Energy 33 (2006) 692699
annals of
NUCLEAR ENERGY
discrete vortex blobs to simulate the ow to examine the
ow-induced vibration problem arising from an innitely
long elastic circular cylinder in a uniform cross ow. Mittal
and Kumar (2001) have used the stabilized nite element
formulation to study the ow-induced oscillations of a pair
of equal sized cylinders in tandem and staggered arrange-
ment placed in a uniform incompressible ow. Huerta
and Liu (1988) have used the Arbitrary Lagrangian Eule-
rian (ALE) nite element formulation to include the ow
separation and non-linear phenomena of steady streaming
for arbitrarily shaped bodies undergoing large periodic
motion in a viscous uid.
In the present study, an explicitimplicit FEM based
acoustically compressible NavierStokes solver using trian-
gular elements with six velocity nodes and three pressure
nodes (P
2
P
1
elements) has been developed where the prim-
itive variables are the primary dependent variables. The
nite element mesh has been generated using an incremen-
tal Delaunay triangulation technique. The ow solver is
coupled to a ve-degrees of freedom structural dynamics
solver and a dynamic mesh movement algorithm to analyze
the vortex-induced structural response. However, turbu-
lence has not been simulated and hence turbulence excita-
tion response cannot be detected. The attention is
focused to the problem of vortex-induced structural
response at low Reynolds number ows.
2. The unsteady NavierStokes solver
In nearly incompressible ow one frequently assumes
that the problem is isothermal and variation of q with p
is very small, such that in product terms of velocity and
density the latter can be assumed constant. Thus the com-
pressibility is due to elastic deformability related to the
pressure change alone. Hence, one can write,
dq
q
K
V
dp;
where K
V
is the bulk modulus. This can be written as
dq
1
c
2
dp; or
oq
ot

1
c
2
op
ot
with c

K
V
=q
_
The above term is substituted in the continuity equation
to replace the density by the pressure. The momentum
equations remain unaltered and they along with the modi-
ed continuity equation complete the set of governing
equations for the uid ow problem. For nite element dis-
cretisation of the equations the interpolation functions for
the pressure and the velocity vector are taken as
p N
p
p and V N
V

V
The spatial discretisation of the NavierStokes equations is
accomplished on a six-nodded velocity and three-nodded
pressure triangular elements (P
2
P
1
elements). Following
Zienkiewicz et al. (1984), the resulting discretized govern-
ing equations can be written as,

M 0
0 M
_ _
_
p
_

V
_ _

0 Q
Q
T
K

K
_ _
p

V
_ _

f
1
f
2
_ _
where K and

K contain the convective and the viscous
terms, respectively, and are dened as
K
_
X
N
T
u
uqrN
u
dX

K
_
X
B
T
lD
0
BdX;
where
B SN
u
and S
o
ox
0
0
o
oy
o
oy
o
ox
_

_
_

M
_
X
N
T
p
1
qc
2
N
p
dX; M
_
X
N
T
u
qN
u
dX and
Q
_
X
N
T
u
rN
p
dX
For incompressible ows

M reduces to 0. To solve the
above matrix equations, treating V explicitly and p implic-
itly, the second equation is rewritten as
M

V
n1

V



V



V
n
DtQ
T
p
n1
K

V
n
f
2
0
where K K

K. Here

V

is dened such that
M

V



V
n
DtK

V
n
f
2
; and hence,

V

is readily
evaluated.
Nomenclature
q density
p pressure
K
V
bulk modulus
N
p
shape function for pressure
N
V
shape function for velocity
_
p variation of pressure with respect to time
_
v variation of velocity with respect to time
N
i
shape function for isoparametric shell element
f thickness direction coordinate
l, m, n direction cosines
d
x
, d
y
, d
z
displacements in x, y and z direction
C
m
added mass coecient
V
1
free stream velocity
V local ow velocity
F
s
applied external force
(F
s
)
t
dynamic force
K
s
stiness matrix for structure
C
l
, C
d
coecients of lift and drag
S. Mitra et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 33 (2006) 692699 693
The equation for pressure can now be written implicitly
as

Mp
n1
p
n
DtQ

V
n1
f
1
0
)

M Dt
2
QM
1
Q
T
p
n1

Mp
n
DtQ

V

Dtf
1
1
Once pressure at (n + 1)
th
time level is obtained,

V
n1
can
be evaluated.
The resulting sets of sparse algebraic equations are
solved using a conjugate-gradient (CG) iterative solver.
The global matrices are partitioned in to submatrices
before the CG solver is applied to reduce the computa-
tional time.
The explicitimplicit scheme presented above is condi-
tionally stable. The most severe critical time-step limit
imposed by the compressibility (wave speed) is no longer
applicable in the scheme. The limitation of the time step
arises from the convective terms contained in K and the
viscous term

K, giving
jV jDt
h
6

1
Re
1
_

1
Re
The element Reynolds number, Re, is dened as
Re
jV jh
2m
where h is the representative element size (taken as square
root of element area) and m is the kinematic viscosity. The
convergence also depends upon the type of element se-
lected. The element selected for the numerical solution is
safe in terms of stability and convergence. It gives a rap-
idly converging solution for steady state uid ow. For
uidstructural interaction analysis, time step for the solu-
tion of structural equation and that of the uid ow equa-
tion has been taken to be equal. Taking impression from
the above equation, time steps of 0.001 s are used for the
uidstructure interaction analysis at Reynolds numbers
up to 250. For higher Reynolds numbers considered here
a reduced time step of 0.0001 s is found to be adequate.
3. Formulation for structure domain
Due to the elegancy in handling the complex geometry,
nite element technique is recognized as the most suitable
amongst all the available numerical tools to the structural
analysts. Consequently, the FE technique is employed to
analyze the structural dynamics in the present study. A
generalized shell element (Cook et al., 2000) (Fig. 1) is used
to analyze the problem.
4. Static and dynamic analysis of shell geometry
The Cartesian coordinates of an arbitrary point in the
element are
x
y
z
_

_
_

numel
i1
N
i
x
i
y
i
z
i
_

_
_

numel
i1
N
i
f
t
i
2
l
3i
m
3i
n
3i
_

_
_

_
The mid-surface tangent vector is dened using the follow-
ing matrix of direction cosines.
l
i

V
2i
jV
2i
j
V
1i
jV
1i
j
_ _

l
2i
l
1i
m
2i
m
1i
n
2i
n
1i
_

_
_

_
The displacements of an arbitrary point in the element are
d
x
d
y
d
z
_

_
_

numel
i1
N
i
d
xi
d
yi
d
zi
_

_
_

numel
i1
N
i
f
t
i
2
l
i

a
i
b
i
_ _
The strains are expressed in terms of the displacement
derivatives and are given by
b e
x
e
y
e
z
c
xy
c
yz
c
zx
c
T

nnode
i1
B
i
b d
xi
d
yi
d
zi
a
i
b
i
c
T
The element stiness matrix can now be written as
K
_
1
1
_
1
1
_
1
1
B
T
EB detJ dndgdf
In the present study the material properties are considered
independent of the thickness direction coordinate f and if
small errors are accepted, then the integration in the thick-
ness direction can be carried out explicitly. In doing so
terms in J that depend on f can be discarded under the
assumption that these terms are negligible if the element
is not sharply curved. The matrix [B] is split into a part
[B
0
] that is independent of f and a part f[B
1
] that is linear
in f to give
K
_
1
1
_
1
1
2B
0

T
E B
0

2
3
B
1

T
E B
1

_ _
detJ dndg
For a static problem:
K
S
fdg fF
S
g
The force vector, assumed to be a uniformly distributed
line load, is calculated from the integrated pressure and vis-
cous stress distribution around the tube obtained from the
solution of the two-dimensional isothermal compressible
NavierStokes equations. The uniformly distributed force
is then
F
s

Lift

1
2
qV
2
1
C
l
Area
proj.

F
s

Drag

1
2
qV
2
1
C
d
Area
proj.

Fig. 1. A generalized shell element.

694 S. Mitra et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 33 (2006) 692699
where V
1
is the ow velocity, q is the density of the mod-
erator uid (heavy water), C
l
and C
d
are the coecient of
lift and drag.
A computer code is developed for the generalized shell
element using the algorithm described above. A nine-nod-
ded isoparametric general shell element (Cook et al.,
2000) with ve degrees of freedom at each node has been
formulated and implemented for the static and dynamic
analysis of shell structures. The code is validated against
some available benchmark solutions on static analysis of
cylindrical shell structures.
For a dynamic problem, when the uid-elastic eects are
not signicant and are restricted to added mass eects only,
there is no strong coupling between structure and uid
motions. The structural displacement is not supposed to
aect the ow patterns. Thus, it is possible to solve the ow
and the structure problems separately using a xed mesh
for the uid dynamic computation. The dynamic problem
can then be approximated by the equation
M
S
M
F
f

dg K
S
fdg fF
S
g
t
The uid added mass M
F

pD
2
4
qC
m
, where C
m
is the added
mass coecient. Following Chen (1987), this coecient is
taken as 1 in this study.
Fig. 2. Scordelis low roof shell.
Fig. 3a. Vertical displacement (w) at central section, y = L/2.
Fig. 3b. Longitudinal displacement (v) at diaphragm, y = 0.
S. Mitra et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 33 (2006) 692699 695
5. Results and discussions
To assess the applicability and validity of the present
computational method a few NavierStokes laminar ow
simulation and the associated cylinder response analysis
are carried out and some representative solutions are pre-
sented here.
Both the generalized shell dynamics and the laminar
NavierStokes ow solvers have been validated against
a few benchmark solutions independently. A sample solu-
tion for the Scordelis low roof shell (Fig. 2) that has no
edge beam and is supported by a rigid diaphragm at each
end is presented to assess the validity and applicability of
the structure module. The structural material is having a
modulus of elasticity E = 4.32 10
8
lb/ft
2
, Poissons ratio
t = 0.0 and a shear modulus of 2.16 10
8
lb/ft
2
. The
structure is subjected to a uniformly distributed load
q
0
= 90 lb/ft
2
. A sample solution is presented in the Figs.
3a and 3b.
The ow solver has been rst tested for a rigid cylinder
at dierent Reynolds numbers. The geometry considered
for the simulations corresponds to a typical reactivity
mechanism tube of a nuclear reactor. A rectangular com-
putational domain has been selected and it is discretized
into 1435 triangles having 2993 nodes with 60 nodes on
the tube surface. The computational mesh used for a single
tube problem is shown in Fig. 4.
Fig. 5 presents the pressure distribution around the sur-
face of the circular cylinder starting from the forward stag-
nation point at the ow Reynolds number of 10. The
pressure distribution compares satisfactorily with the com-
putations due to Dennis and Chang (1970). The stagnation
pressure coecient is found to be about 1.54, considerably
larger than the inviscid value of one. The nature of the
pressure distribution at the rear part of the cylinder also
Fig. 4. Mesh around single cylinder for nite element study of ow.
Fig. 5. Pressure distribution around the cylinder at Re = 10.
Fig. 6. Pressure distribution around the cylinder at Re = 40.
Fig. 7. Variation of C
L
and C
D
at Reynolds number 200.
696 S. Mitra et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 33 (2006) 692699
indicates the appearance of a steady separated region con-
ned in a closed symmetric wake. The adverse pressure gra-
dient is relieved considerably due to separation. The
computed pressure distribution around the cylinder at Rey-
nolds number 30 is shown in the Fig. 6. The present solu-
tion agrees quite well with the prediction due to Thoman
and Szewczyk (1969).
The ow eld at a Reynolds number of 200 is
described in the Figs. 78. The separated region is pre-
dicted accurately and the pressure rise is resolved fairly
accurately. From the streamline patterns at dierent
instants presented in the Figs. 8a8c the periodic vortex
shedding is clearly evident and this manifests in the peri-
odic uid forces acting on the tube as can be seen from
the lift and drag coecient time traces in the Fig. 7.
The drag coecient has a frequency twice as large as that
of the lift coecient. The mean values and the amplitudes
of the lift and drag coecients compare reasonably with
benchmark solutions. The Strouhal number in this case
is found to be 0.166.
The structure and ow modules are coupled to study the
static and dynamic responses of the adjuster rod, shuto
Fig. 8a. Streamlines around the cylinder at non-dimensional time 10 at Re
200.
Fig. 8b. Streamlines around the cylinder at non-dimensional time 130 at
Re 200.
Fig. 8c. Streamlines around the cylinder at non-dimensional time 200 at
Re 200.
Fig. 9. Adjuster rod displacement at drag maximum.
Fig. 10. Shut-o rod displacement at drag maximum.
Fig. 11. Displacement of the CT/PT at an instant of drag maximum.
S. Mitra et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 33 (2006) 692699 697
rod and the central calandria tube of a typical nuclear reac-
tor. Both the adjuster and the shut o rods have a length of
8.06 m with outer diameters of 0.183 and 0.256 m respec-
tively; the corresponding thickness being 0.0025 and
0.003 m, respectively. The calandria tube has a length of
5.80 m, diameter of 0.265 m and is 0.0033 m thick. The
spanwise displacements of the reactivity mechanism tubes
under the inuence of the unsteady forces due to free
streams corresponding to dierent Reynolds numbers (ow
speeds) are shown in the Figs. 911. The results presented
correspond to a time when the drag force is at its maximum
value.
A typical coupled simulation at a ow Reynolds num-
ber of 120 is presented in the Figs. 12 and 13. The uid
solid coupled code starts execution assuming a stationary
rigid body and the elasticity and the structural dynamics
are introduced after about one second of the ow simu-
lation. Fig. 12 shows the deection of the cylinder in
transverse direction and Fig. 13 presents the deection
in in-line direction at a ow Reynolds number of 120
and a frequency ratio (cylinder natural frequency to
Strouhal frequency) of 0.75. It can be noticed that there
is large deection initially just after the introduction of
the exibility of the cylinder. Then it comes to its mean
position and starts vibrating under the inuence of vortex
shedding. The transverse deection has the same behavior
as that of the lift coecient and are in the same phase, as
if vibrating under resonance condition. This condition is
called Lock-in. A structural damping factor of 0.1 has
been considered.
At higher ow Reynolds numbers, i.e., at higher ow
velocities the displacements increase signicantly as can
be seen from the gures. The thinner adjuster and shut-
o rods show uid-elastic instability at a ow speed of
0.81.2 m/s, whereas the calandria tubes do not show any
instability in that range. However, the displacements are
rather too large at these speeds and in some synchronous
mode of oscillation collision between two tubes is not unli-
kely. The calandria tubes appear to become unstable at a
ow speed higher than 4.5 m/s. However, the ows at such
high speeds will denitely be turbulent and highly three-
dimensional in nature and hence the computations pre-
sented here may not be that reliable. The values, however,
can be taken as conservative estimates of uid-elastic
instability.
6. Conclusion
A uid dynamics code for acoustically compressible
NavierStokes equation has been developed, using expli-
citimplicit nite element method. From the various
results presented in this paper it can fairly be concluded
that the numerical investigation of the ow over a cylin-
der using the nite element method is successful. The sim-
ulation of the ow around a cylinder is reasonably
accurate. It has been found that the predicted separation
points, mean drag coecients, lift amplitudes and Strou-
hal number are very close to the experimental results.
The introduction of the cylinder dynamics to the nite
element NavierStokes solver, i.e., simulation of the ow
around elastic cylinder is also found out to be reasonably
successful. The well-known phenomenon of lock-in is cap-
tured. The vortex shedding frequency is found to coincide
approximately with the cylinder natural frequency as
manifested by the transverse oscillation and uctuating
lift histories.
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Fig. 13. In-line deection at Re = 120.
698 S. Mitra et al. / Annals of Nuclear Energy 33 (2006) 692699
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