SPH simulation of natural convection in a modeled reactor core using a new combinatorial kernel

A new kernel function, a combination of a polynomial term and a reciprocal term, is proposed in this work for the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation. A dam-break case is used to validate the new kernel, and satisfactory consistent results between the current method and the existed both experimental and numerical profiles have been obtained. Then, the current method has been used to simulate the natural convection flow and heat transfer in modeled reactors. Various temperature differences, channel numbers, and channel length have been considered for comparative study. Both the water particle trajectories, velocities, and temperature fields have been obtained. To perform better statistics, a mapping method from current Lagrangian results onto Eulerian grids has been proposed by using the new kernel again. The mean and root-mean-square quantities have been analyzed to show the basic characteristics of water's recycling flow in accompany by convective heat transfer.