The Generation IV Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) design is being actively studied in various countries for application due to its inherent passive safe design, higher thermal efficiencies, and proposed capability of providing high temperature process heat. The pebble bed core is one of two core designs used in gas reactors. In the pebble bed core there are mechanisms present which can cause the flow to laminarize, thus reducing its heat transfer effectiveness. Wind tunnel experiments were conducted using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) to investigate boundary layer laminarization due to flow acceleration and convex curvature effects. The flow was subject to acceleration and curvature both separately and together and the flow behavior characterized with velocity flow profiles, mean boundary layer parameters, and turbulence quantities. Laminarization was identified and the influence of acceleration and curvature was characterized. / Graduation date: 2013

This thesis deals with ways to suppress turbulent flow in pipelines. In the first part various methods of laminarization are presented, when the turbulent flow is transformed into laminar flow, including the results of experiments published by the authors. The next part presents the results from CFD. The calculations were performed for one of the methods mentioned in the first part and the results were compared with each other. In addition, several options have been suggested to improve the original method.