Porous Structure Analysis of the Packed Beds in a High-Temperature Reactor Pebble Bed Modules Heat Transfer Test Facility

We analyse the porous structure of the packed beds in the heat transfer test facility built for high temperature gas cooled reactors from several aspects, such as oscillatory porosity, average porosity, thickness effect, coordination number and contact angle. An understanding and comparison of the porous structure of the facility bed and the real reactor core are developed to make recommendations for the design and analysis of the heat transfer test facility. The results show that there is very little difference between the porous characteristics of the two packed beds of spheres.