CHEN Xiaoli，ZHANG Qiang，ZHAO Yijun，YUAN Jue

China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research，Beijing 100038，China

Abstract: Waste thermal discharge is an important environmental problem the coastal nuclear power plants （NPP） face. Model forecast is a main approach for the discharge impact evaluation. In this paper，a NPP site with shallow channel discharge is chosen as an example. The coastal hydrodynamics and thermal dispersion are simulated by a 3D numerical model. And the result is compared with results of a 2D numerical model and a physical model. The comparison shows that the vertical temperature distribution simulated by the 3D numerical model agrees to the physical model result. The surfacial 4℃ and 1℃ temperature rise range of the 3D numerical model is appropriate compared with the two other models. The comparison study result shows the 3D model has good performance on the vertical thermal stratification under the buoyant force for channel discharge into shallow water， and the model can achieve proper accuracy for both the near and far field. The research shows the 3D model is flexible enough for this kind of discharge type and can be used as the basis of environmental impact evaluation.

Keywords: waste thermal water discharge; 3D numerical model; thermal stratification; advection and dispersion; shallow water discharge

(Journal of China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2018)