The rate of entropy generation is used to estimate the average error of approximate numerical solutions of conductive and convective heat transfer problems with respect to the corresponding exact solutions. This is possible because the entropy analysis of simple problems, which have exact analytical solutions, shows that the rate of entropy generation behaves similarly to the average error of approximate solutions. Two test cases (transient two-dimensional heat conduction with Dirichlet boundary conditions and free convection between two plates at different temperatures with internal heat source) are discussed. Results suggest to use entropy analysis as a tool for the assessment of solution methods and to estimate the error of numerical solutions of thermal-fluid-dynamics problems.

The study of the fluid dynamics of the windowless spallation target of an accelerator-driven system (ADS) is presented. Several target mockup configurations have been investigated: the first one was a symmetrical target, which was made by two concentric cylinders and the other configurations are not symmetrical. In the experiments, water has been used as hydraulic equivalent to lead-bismuth eutectic fluid. The experiments have been carried out at room temperature and flow rate up to 24 kg/s. The fluid velocity components have been measured by an ultrasound technique. The velocity field of the liquid within the target region either for the approximately axial-symmetrical configuration or for the not symmetrical ones as a function of the flow rate and the initial liquid level is presented. A comparison of experimental data with the prediction of the finite volume FLUENT code is also presented. Moreover, the results of a 2D-3D numerical analysis that investigates the effect on the steady state thermal and flow fields due to the insertion of guide vanes in the windowless target unit (TU) of the EFIT project ADS nuclear reactor are presented, by analyzing both the cold flow case (absence of power generation) and the hot flow case (nominal power generation inside the TU).

Convective heat transfer for subcooled liquid nitrogen in a smooth horizontal pipe with internal sources is studied by analytical and numerical methods. For high Reynolds numbers the numerical results are in good agreement with standard heat transfer correlations. At smaller Reynolds numbers (<10,000), large circumferential and longitudinal temperature distributions can observed. The effect of localized heat sources on the heat transfer process is also investigated to simulate insulation failures in cryogenic pipelines. Results show that the presence of constant heat sources is detrimental to the heat transfer from both laminar and turbulent flows.