Session: OAC-06-04 Continued Safe Operation of Existing Assets - 4

Paper Number: 107319

107319 - Methodology Development to Assess Local Deposition of Corrosion Products on Heated Surfaces of Steam Generating Heat Exchangers 

Heat exchangers such as steam generators, boilers, evaporators are part of many industrial processes in nuclear, chemical and petrochemical plants. The heat transfer surfaces in those components are subject to deposition of corrosion products with severe consequences in maintenance, downtime and failure. The complex relationship between the water chemistry, fluid-  and thermodynamics and transport of particulate solids from the bulk to the metal surfaces acts as a barrier in understanding the root-cause of the failure or the low-performance of the heat exchangers. Besides, the accessibility to deposition measured data on the surfaces is usually very limited, if possible at all.

These limitations are the motivation to develop a state-of-the art methodology to model and calculate the local deposition loading on the surfaces of steam generating heat exchangers. The assessment approach goes along with the increasing process digitalization as it consists of mechanistic and physics-based models to reproduce the deposition phenomenon in the complex three-dimensional turbulent, two-phase and particle-laden flow at any operation condition with an extended Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code.

 Recent results of the applicability of the methodology on nuclear steam generators and non-nuclear industrial boiler will be discussed and how the calculated deposition distribution can provide enhanced information about the key influencing parameters, potential design changes, best locations for data monitoring as well as strategies for scheduling plant shutdowns to clean up the deposits.

Presenting Author: Luciana Rudolph Framatome GmbH

Presenting Author Biography: Graduated in Chemical Engineering at the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil) in 1994 and then at the University of Dortmund in 1999 (thesis “modeling and simulation of heat transfer in solar reactors with computational fluid dynamics (CFD)”). Research specialist at Dow Chemical Company in the field of exp. & computational fluid dynamics from 2000 to 2009. Performed my doctorate at the University of Berlin during my professional career at Dow (thesis “experimental and numerical characterization of mixing of highly viscous fluids in co-axial mixers”). In 2010 I joined Framatome and currently I am Framatome Expert in Fluid Mechanics. Resposible for performance optimization of components and safety processes, for support licensing, for safety analysis of fluid loads on piping systems and for development of new methodologies in CFD.

Authors:

Luciana Rudolph Framatome GmbH
Thomas Fuchs Framatome GmbH