Research on Numerical Simulation Method of Water Hammer Effect Analysis

[Background]: The generation of water hammer is usually accompanied by significant pressure fluctuations. Excessively high pressure poses a challenge to the structural integrity of the reactor. Accurately obtaining pressure wave propagation data under the water hammer effect is crucial for conducting structural load analysis and assessment. [Purpose]: This study aims to conduct method research on the pressure wave propagation of single-phase water hammers, and a pressure wave propagation analysis code for a one-dimensional single-phase water hammer was developed. [Methods]: The typical single-phase water shock tube benchmark example was adopted as the verification object. Firstly, node sensitivity was analyzed using the newly developed code. Based on the sensitivity analysis results, the pressure and velocity distributions in the shock tube at two distinct time instants were analyzed and validated with the simulation results obtained from the RELAP5 code and the analytical solution. [Results]: The results show that the simulation results of the newly developed code are in good agreement with those of the RELAP5 code and the analytical solution overall, and the smoothing effect of the newly developed code is relatively small, with the results being closer to the analytical solution. [Conclusions]: This new code can accurately simulate the pressure transient of a one-dimensional single-phase water hammer.