Sheffield Unsteady Flow Facility

Heat, Flow and Turbulence Research Group

We conduct applied as well as fundamental research in the general field of fluid flow and heat transfer combining computational simulations with experimental investigations. Much of our current research is related to nuclear and fusion thermal hydraulics.

People

Current and former members of the Heat, Flow and Turbulence Research Group.

Research

Networks/consortia

that we lead or are part of

Projects

overall flow pattern — A coupled simulation of a full length 5x5 rod bundle sub-assembly. Porous media sub-models embedded in the coarse-grid baseline model to account for effects of spacers. Resolved CFD sub-model, covering only one-grid-span length, to capture the detailed

Sub-channel CFD (BEIS)

Liquid metal fast reactors and heat transfer

Liquid metal-cooled fast reactor

LMHT (EPSRC/DOE)

Buoyancy driven flow during the injection of high temperature helium into low temperature air

HTGR (EPSRC/DOE)

Supercritical water reactor

ECC-SMART (H2020)

Turbulence structures of the short domain natural convection — Iso-surfaces computed using Q-criterion coloured by the streamwise vorticity (a) oblique view (b) top-down view.

AGR eccentricity — Temperature contours of (left) the main brick of a concentric fuel channel and (right) a fully eccentric fuel channel at 15.3 full power year.

AGR core heat transfer

spatial acceleration streak — High-/low-speed streaks and turbulence vortexes in a spatial accelerated channel flow

Spatial acceleration

Visualisation of turbulent vortexes in buoyancy-opposed flows

Flow laminarisation

SubchannelCFD_sketch — Mesh system in SubChCFD

Transient Sub-Channel CFD

UFORCE experimentation diagram

CFD Based on Stoke Flow (Aberdeen & Sheffield) — Predicted pressure, velocity and permeability tensor in a 5 µm resolution image.