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LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Numerical modelling of cold helium safety discharges from the cryogenic distribution line

Persson, Jonathan (2020)
Department of Automatic Control
Abstract
The European Spallation Source, ESS, is a project currently with 17 Partner Countries, and with Sweden and Denmark as host nations. The ESS main facility is being constructed in Lund, to ultimately become the world’s most powerful neutron source, providing around 30 times brighter neutron beams than any earlier facility.

The Linear Accelerator, Linac, at the heart of ESS is fundamentally powered by superconducting cavities that require extremely low temperatures to operate, namely 2K (-271 °C). The cooling/cryogenic fluid, helium, is supplied to the cavities through a complex cryogenic distribution system (CDS). At abnormal failure modes, to protect against unwanted over-pressurisation, this system needs to be vented through pressure... (More)
The European Spallation Source, ESS, is a project currently with 17 Partner Countries, and with Sweden and Denmark as host nations. The ESS main facility is being constructed in Lund, to ultimately become the world’s most powerful neutron source, providing around 30 times brighter neutron beams than any earlier facility.

The Linear Accelerator, Linac, at the heart of ESS is fundamentally powered by superconducting cavities that require extremely low temperatures to operate, namely 2K (-271 °C). The cooling/cryogenic fluid, helium, is supplied to the cavities through a complex cryogenic distribution system (CDS). At abnormal failure modes, to protect against unwanted over-pressurisation, this system needs to be vented through pressure safety valves. To avoid helium discharges into the tunnel the safety valves will discharge cold helium into a vent line, which transfer the helium into the external environment. Usually the most critical failure mode is a loss of insulation vacuum, which exposes the CDS to a sudden rise of heat loads.

This thesis investigates the most critical phenomena for the non-insulated vent line flows. Due to a lack of simple engineering descriptions of these unsteady flows, a set of complex numerical models will support a proper vent line sizing proposal. A commercial numerical software, ANSYS Fluent, is used and compared with simpler solution methods for differential equations derived from Fanno and Rayleigh flow theories. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Persson, Jonathan
supervisor
organization
year
type
H3 - Professional qualifications (4 Years - )
subject
report number
TFRT-6117
other publication id
0280-5316
language
English
id
9033247
date added to LUP
2020-12-23 11:19:15
date last changed
2020-12-23 11:19:15
@misc{9033247,
  abstract     = {{The European Spallation Source, ESS, is a project currently with 17 Partner Countries, and with Sweden and Denmark as host nations. The ESS main facility is being constructed in Lund, to ultimately become the world’s most powerful neutron source, providing around 30 times brighter neutron beams than any earlier facility.

 The Linear Accelerator, Linac, at the heart of ESS is fundamentally powered by superconducting cavities that require extremely low temperatures to operate, namely 2K (-271 °C). The cooling/cryogenic fluid, helium, is supplied to the cavities through a complex cryogenic distribution system (CDS). At abnormal failure modes, to protect against unwanted over-pressurisation, this system needs to be vented through pressure safety valves. To avoid helium discharges into the tunnel the safety valves will discharge cold helium into a vent line, which transfer the helium into the external environment. Usually the most critical failure mode is a loss of insulation vacuum, which exposes the CDS to a sudden rise of heat loads.

 This thesis investigates the most critical phenomena for the non-insulated vent line flows. Due to a lack of simple engineering descriptions of these unsteady flows, a set of complex numerical models will support a proper vent line sizing proposal. A commercial numerical software, ANSYS Fluent, is used and compared with simpler solution methods for differential equations derived from Fanno and Rayleigh flow theories.}},
  author       = {{Persson, Jonathan}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Numerical modelling of cold helium safety discharges from the cryogenic distribution line}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}