Standard laboratory hydraulic pressure drop characteristics of various solid and I&E fuel elements

The purpose of this report is to present a set of standard pressure-drop curves for various fuel elements in process tubes of Hanford reactors. The flow and pressures within a process tube assembly under normal conditions are dependent to a large extent on the magnitude of the pressure drop across the fuel elements. The knowledge of this pressure drop is important in determination of existing thermal conditions within the process tubes and in predicting conditions for new fuel element designs or changes in operating conditions. The pressure-flow relations for the different Hanford fuel element-process tube assemblies have all been determined at one time or another in the 189-D Hydraulics Laboratory but the data had never been collected into a single report. Such a report is presented now in the interest of establishing a set of ``standard curves`` as determined by laboratory investigations. It must be recognized that the pressure drops of fuel elements in actual process tubes in the reactors may be slightly different than those reported here. The data presented here were obtained in new process tubes while reactor process tubes are usually either corroded or filmed, depending on their past history.