Heat Transfer in a Cable Penetration Fire Stop System

Abstract In this work the dynamic heat transfer occurring in a cable penetration fire stop system built in the firewall of nuclear power plants is three-dimensionally investigated to develop a test-simulator that can be used to verify effectiveness of the sealants. The dynamic heat transfer can be described by a partial differential equation (PDE) and its initial and boundary conditions. For the shake of simplicity PDE is divided into two parts; one corresponding to the heat transfer in the axial direction and the other corresponding to the heat transfer on the vertical layers. Two numerical methods, SOR (Sequential Over-Relaxation) and FEM (Finite Element Method), are implemented to solve these equations respectively. The axial line is discretized, and SOR is applied. Similarly, all the layers are separated into finite elements, where the time and spatial functions are assumed to be of orthogonal collocation state at each element. The heat fluxes on the layers are calculated by FEM. It is shown that the penetration cable influences the temperature distribution of the fire stop system very significantly. The simulation results arc shown in the three-dimensional graphics for the understanding of the transient temperature distribution in the fire stop system.