Experimental and Numerical Study on Pressure Distribution of 90° Elbow for Flow Measurement

Numerical simulation is performed to investigate the pressure distribution of helium gas under high pressure and high temperature for 10 MW High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor (HTGR-10). Experimental studies are first conducted on a self-built test system to investigate the static pressure distribution of a 90° elbow and validate the credibility of the computational approach. The 90° elbow is designed and manufactured geometrically the same as HTGR-10. Based on the experimental data, comparison of static pressure of inner wall and outer wall of 90° elbow with numerical results is carried out to verify the numerical approach. With high agreement between experimental results and numerical results of water flowing through 90° elbow, flow characteristics of helium gas under high pressure and high temperature are investigated on the confirmed numerical approach for flow measurement. And wall pressure distribution of eight cross sections of 90° elbow is given in detail to represent the entire region of the elbow.