Pebble Bed Test Facility

The Advanced High-Temperature Reactor (AHTR) concept leverages a particle-based fuel format consisting of discrete spherical graphite pebbles arrayed in a packed bed architecture. Thermal regulation achieved via flow of gas (e.g., helium) or liquid (e.g., molten salt) coolants through the void spaces between pebbles in the bed (characteristic pebble diameters: ~ 6 cm, gas cooled; ~ 3 cm, liquid cooled).

Texas A&M is conducting pressure drop and velocity measurements in the versatile experimental facility of randomly packed spheres at various Reynolds numbers. High-fidelity velocity measurements using Time-resolved Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry (TR-SPIV) at the pore scales and near the wall boundary are performed in the matching-refractive-index (MRI) facility.

• Thien Nguyen, Robert Muyshondt, Y. Hassan, and N. K. Anand “Experimental investigation of cross flow mixing in a randomly packed bed and streamwise vortex characteristics using particle image velocimetry and proper orthogonal decomposition analysis” Physics of Fluids, Vol. 31, 025101-025, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5079303

• Muyshondt, D.T. Nguyen, Y. Hassan, N.K. Anand, Non-Intrusive Velocity and Temperature Measurements of Buoyant Flows from Inductively Heated Dual-Spheres, Transactions of American Nuclear Society 121 (1), pp. 1633-1636.
• Robert Muyshondt, Thien Nguyen, Yassin Hassan, and N. K. Anand, “High-fidelity Velocity Measurements in a Cross-Flow Plan of a Randomly Packed Bed using Time Resolved Particle Imaging Velocimetry,” ICONE27- 2389, International Conference on Nuclear Engineering -27, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, May 19-24, 2019.