Nuclear thermal-hydraulics

Prof. Y. Bartosiewicz performs research in nuclear thermalhydraulics. This activity is mainly focussed in the development of numerical tools to tackle very specific issues related to pressurized water reactors (PWR) and liquid metal reactors (GENIV). For classical reactors (PWR), studies on flashing two-phase flows for loss of coolant application (LOCA), flows related to pressurized thermal shock (PTS), natural convection for passive systems and spent fuel pool including gravity driven flashing including non-condensable.

For liquid metal reactors, state of the art CFD models using direct numerical simulation(DNS) and large eddy simulations (LES) are developed in collaboration of Prof. G. Winckelmans to tackle the issue of convective heat transfer within the frame of a very low-Prandtl fluid. This research is essentially done in the frame of EU projects and/local partners such as SCK•CEN and VKI.

Prof. M. Papalexandris conducts research in turbulent convection in liquid-gas systems as well as in hybrid domains (porous media - pure fluid domains). The objective of these studies is to better understand the phenomena that take place during loss-of cooling conditions in spent-fuel pools. This research is financed by the Belgian Federal Ministry of Energy and Bel V.