Knowledge of fluid behaviour and thermal transfer is critical to ensure economical and safe power generation. The most striking and immediate example is the need for safe operation of nuclear reactors, especially in regard to an adequate supply of core coolant. From computational fluid dynamics, to cooling-towers engineering or to advanced nuclear reactors thermohydraulics, the effort of this Committee is to provide a forum for exchange of information among the researchers and professionals, including engineers from industry, who have as a common interest the study of flow phenomena encountered in the production and use of energy.
Intersociety Co-operation: It is the aim of the Committee to foster co-operation with other groups and organisations striving for similar goals. A recently established, very active association of researchers and professionals from industry engaged in Computational and Experimental Fluid Dynamics is ERCOFTAC (European Research Community on Flow Turbulence and Combustion). The Committee has established a working association with ERCOFTAC, with joint workshops and mutually sponsored symposia.
Numerical Flow Modelling: The explosion in computational capabilities and the availability of computational fluid dynamics software is rapidly changing the approach to hydraulic modelling. Advances in numerical techniques must be accompanied by further insight into physical behaviour and by experimental investigation. A special interest for the Committee is the refined modelling of turbulent flows. In this field a Committee is organising, on an annual basis, workshops (in association with ERCOFTAC) with benchmark exercises on well documented test cases.
Cooling Towers: Research subjects for the Committee working group on cooling towers include thermohydraulic performance, environmental impact, civil engineering of cooling towers, the performance of spray cooling ponds and water conservation. The Committee organises biennial symposia.
Advanced Nuclear Reactors: A third working group focuses its research exchanges on the thermohydraulics of advanced nuclear reactors. Of particular interest are investigations of passive safety systems, where continued cooling of critical reactor components such as core and containment under accident conditions is assured through passive devices. These systems do not require operator action, but rather rely on physical principles, such as gravity, natural coolant circulation and enhanced heat transfer. The working group regularly organises workshops and benchmark exercises focusing on flows with heat transfer.
Wind engineering: This recently established working group focuses on turbulent flows around structures. The purpose of the working group is, first, to be able to compare various turbulence approaches for this difficult problem, ranging from one-point closure models (using Boussinesq assumption as the k-epsilon one or full Reynolds stress modelling) to Large Eddy Simulation. Then, the definition of wind loads on structure and problem of fluid-structure interaction will be addressed. A direct industrial application is the fluid-structure interaction between wind flow and cooling towers, but wind action can also be seen as a source of energy.