Comparative analysis of the finite element method and the body fit method for the mixed convection analysis in rod bundles

Abstract

In the reactor rod bundle analysis, mixed convection phenomena are very important after the reactor shutdown. In this paper, the finite element method and the body fit method are developed to analyze the mixed convection phenomena in a complex geometry. The velocity distribution and the temperature distribution in the reactor rod bundles are obtained using these two methods. To validate the developed methods, a comparison of the present results with the analytic solutions in a simple case are taken. The results show that the mixed convection in a complex geometry can be treated very well using the developed the finite element method or the body fit method. Even though, the results show that the finite element method is more efficient than the body fit method to solve the mixed convection problems.