Current Sponsored Projects

The burst investigations of zircaloy-4 claddings are important for framing the safety guidelines for PHWR nuclear reactors in an accident scenario. As a result of oxidation at cladding-water interface, the hydrogen is absorbed on the clad tube surface making the surface brittle. The proposed work undertakes the effect of hydrogen content in the clad tube bursting phenomena. The zircaloy-4 cladding of known hydrogen content (hydrided samples) are burst at different pressure and heating rates. The pre and post burst metallographic investigations on the zircaloy-4 cladding specimens are performed. Various other tests are to be performed to develop the understanding the role of hydrogen ingress on the material properties of zircaloy-4.

In this work pool boiling over a vertical surface with enhanced heat transfer is proposed to develop a self-adaptive electronic cooling system. Novel segmented finned imprint will be used on the heated surface for performance enhancement of proposed cooling system. It has already been established through experiments by our group that segmented finned configurations reduce flow instabilities and enhance heat transfer rate in flow boiling in microchannels. Their utilization over a vertical surface during pool boiling is also expected to enhance the heat transfer rate. Enhanced heat transfer rate will increase the efficiency of a closed loop thermosyphonic effect based on which self-adapting cooling system would be developed.