Breakthrough in boiling
Engineers must manage a maelstrom in the core of operating nuclear reactors. Nuclear reactions deposit an extraordinary amount of heat in the fuel rods, setting off a frenzy of boiling, bubbling, and evaporation in surrounding fluid. From this churning flow, operators harness the removal of heat. In search of greater efficiencies in nuclear systems, scientists have long sought to characterize and predict the physics underlying these processes of heat transfer, with only modest success. But now a research team led by Emilio Baglietto, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT, has made a significant breakthrough in detailing these physical phenomena. Their approach utilizes a modeling technology called computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Baglietto has developed new CFD tools that capture the fundamental physics of boiling, making it possible to track rapidly evolving heat transfer phenomena at the microscale in a range of different reactors, and for different operating conditions. “Our research opens...