NMX‑THF‑30 / Rev 00 / thermal-hydraulic loop / HT · HP 2026 · Product Page

NMX-THF-30 · ENGINEERED TO ORDER — THERMAL-HYDRAULICS TEST FACILITY

Heat and flow, under pressure.

Name: Thermal-Hydraulics Test Facility
Brand: Neometrix

The loop that recreates a plant’s heat and flow — on the ground, where you can measure it. Inside a power plant or reactor, heat and coolant behave in coupled, safety-critical ways — boiling, two-phase flow, natural circulation — and you cannot study them in a running plant. A thermal-hydraulics test facility recreates those conditions on an instrumented test loop: high temperature, high pressure, single- and two-phase water and steam, driven through a heated test section and measured to validate the design, the safety case and the analysis codes. We build the loop — the high-pressure piping, the instrumented test section, the pressuriser and condensers, the structure, the safety and the instrumentation and data-acquisition integration; the heater rods, the high-pressure pumps and the precision instruments are bought in. Engineered to order — no specific delivered facility is claimed.

Enquire — thermal-hydraulics loop Capability sheet (PDF)

Illustrative image, not a delivered installation — a multi-storey thermal-hydraulic test loop in a research hall: a tall structural-steel frame carrying insulated high-pressure piping in a closed loop, a vertical heated test section, a pressuriser, circulation pumps and a condenser, with an instrumentation cabinet, no text and no people

Fig · 01 A multi-storey thermal-hydraulic test loop — high-pressure piping, a heated test section and instrumentation — illustrative, not a delivered installation

Studies

heat + flowcoupled thermal-hydraulics

Recreates

HT + HPsingle & two-phase

Proves

safety + designvalidates the codes

Loop

heated + pumpedforced + natural circ

Build

to orderfabricated + integrated

ISO 9001 / 14001 Engineered to order Test facilities & HP loops To the pressure-vessel code Noida · India

Overview

You cannot test it in the reactor.

The behaviour that decides whether a power plant or reactor is safe is thermal-hydraulic — how heat moves into the coolant, how the coolant flows, what happens when it starts to boil, and whether it keeps circulating when the pumps stop. You cannot study those phenomena in a running plant — the whole point is to understand them before anything goes wrong — so they are recreated on a dedicated test loop, at the real temperatures and pressures, and measured under dense instrumentation. The facility is where a design’s thermal-hydraulic assumptions are turned into measured fact.

Illustrative image, not a delivered installation — a vertical heated test section of a thermal-hydraulic loop: an insulated instrumented section with heavy electrical heater-power connections and many fine thermocouple and pressure-tap leads bundled off it, with a flow meter in the line, matte steel, no text and no people

Fig · 02 The heated test section — heater rods put a measured heat flux into the flow, and dense instrumentation reads it — illustrative, not a delivered installation

Heat and flow are coupled — you test them together. Thermal-hydraulics is the coupling of heat transfer and fluid flow: the heat changes the flow (it boils it), and the flow changes the heat (it carries it away), and you cannot separate the two. The loop reproduces both at once — a heated test section puts real heat flux into a real flow — so the coupled behaviour, including the critical heat flux (the boiling crisis) and two-phase flow, can be measured as it actually happens.

The hard cases: boiling, and circulating without pumps. Two phenomena matter most and are hardest to predict. The critical heat flux — the point where the surface dries out and its temperature runs away — sets the safety margin, and the loop finds it. And natural circulation — the coolant continuing to flow by density alone, with no pumps — is the basis of modern passive safety, and only a loop can prove it works at scale.

The loop is the engineering. The instruments and the heater rods are specialist, bought-in items; what makes them a facility is the loop around them: the high-pressure, high-temperature piping, the instrumented test section, the pressuriser that holds the loop pressure, the condensers that reject the heat, the multi-storey structure, the safety, and the instrumentation and data-acquisition that turn it into measured data. That is our competence — we build experimental test loops.

The physics you are chasing — the boiling crisis, natural circulation — is subtle and coupled, so the loop has to be right and the instrumentation dense. Building a high-pressure, high-temperature loop that behaves like the real thing, and measuring it, is the whole job.

Test It on a Loop, Not in the Plant

Recreate the conditions

The thermal-hydraulic phenomena that decide safety cannot be studied in a running reactor or plant. A test loop recreates the high-temperature, high-pressure, two-phase conditions on the ground, under instrumentation — where they can be measured.

Heat and Flow, Coupled

Boiling, two-phase, natural circulation

Thermal-hydraulics couples heat transfer and fluid flow, so the loop tests them together — the critical heat flux (boiling crisis), two-phase flow and natural circulation (passive cooling without pumps).

The Loop Is Ours

Instruments bought-in; loop built

The heater rods, HP pumps and precision instruments are bought-in specialist; Neometrix engineers and fabricates the HP/HT loop, the test section, the pressuriser, the condensers, the structure and the instrumentation and DAQ integration.

Architecture

Recreate, measure, validate.

The schematic shows the idea — recreate the plant conditions on a loop, measure the coupled thermal-hydraulics, validate the design and codes — and the loop that does it. The detail panel covers the physics and the honest scope.

FIG · 03THF ARCHITECTURE · RECREATE / MEASURE / VALIDATE · HT/HP TEST LOOP + INSTRUMENTATION · TO THE DESIGN CODE

Fig · 03 Recreate the high-temperature, high-pressure, two-phase conditions on an instrumented loop, and measure the coupled thermal-hydraulics to validate the design, the safety case and the codes

Arc · 01

The High-Pressure Loop

A closed high-temperature, high-pressure water-and-steam loop with a pressuriser, circulation pumps and condensers — the circuit that carries the working fluid at the real conditions.

Arc · 02

The Heated Test Section

The instrumented section that recreates the geometry under study, with electrical heater rods that put a real, measured heat flux into the flow — the heart of the experiment.

Arc · 03

Instrumentation & Data Acquisition

Dense measurement of temperature, pressure, flow and void fraction, with high-speed data acquisition and control — the loop’s whole purpose is to measure.

Arc · 04

Fabricate, Integrate & Commission

The HP piping, the multi-storey structure, the safety (relief, interlocks) and the integration and commissioning to the design code — the engineering that ties it together.

Have a thermal-hydraulics, test-loop or high-temperature high-pressure test-facility requirement? Send the test envelope and the phenomena — a clause-by-clause compliance matrix within two working days · [email protected]

Send tender spec

Specifications

Reference loop, built to the test envelope.

The parameters below describe a reference loop. The pressure, the temperature, the heater power, the test-section geometry and the instrumentation all follow from the phenomena to be studied and the plant conditions to be recreated.

Illustrative image, not a delivered installation — a control and data-acquisition room for a thermal-hydraulic test loop: a control console and instrument and data-acquisition equipment racks with dark blank monitors, behind a window looking onto the loop hall, matte grey and unmarked, no text and no people

Fig · 04 The control and data-acquisition room — dense instrumentation and high-speed data acquisition turn the loop into measured data — illustrative, not a delivered installation

Where a test loop is won or lost

In the fidelity, the instrumentation and the safety, not the plumbing. A loop that does not reach the real pressure and temperature tests the wrong regime; a test section that does not recreate the geometry and heat flux measures the wrong thing; sparse instrumentation misses the phenomenon it was built to catch; and a high-temperature, high-pressure loop that is not designed and protected to code is a hazard in its own right.

That is why the loop is built to the real conditions, the test section faithfully recreates the geometry and heat flux, the instrumentation is dense and fast, and the whole loop is designed, relieved and interlocked to the appropriate pressure-vessel and safety code. The measure of a facility is that its data are trusted — and that it is safe to run.

Full specification — expand

System	Thermal-hydraulics test facility — engineered & fabricated: high-temperature high-pressure test loop, heated instrumented test section, pressuriser, condensers, structure, safety, instrumentation & data acquisition
Type	HTHP forced-circulation loop, natural-circulation / passive-safety loop, boiling / critical-heat-flux (CHF) facility, or component / test-section loop — configured to the phenomena
The Loop	Closed high-temperature, high-pressure water/steam loop; pressuriser holds the loop pressure; sized to the real plant conditions
Heated Test Section	Instrumented section recreating the geometry (rod bundle, channel, tube); electrical heater rods put a measured heat flux into the flow (up to MW-scale power)
Circulation	Forced (high-pressure circulation pumps) and/or natural circulation (density-driven, no pump)
Heat Rejection	Condensers, heat exchangers & coolers reject the heat and close the loop
Instrumentation & DAQ	Dense temperature, pressure, flow, level & void-fraction measurement; high-speed data acquisition & control
Structure & Safety	Multi-storey structural frame; high-pressure piping, relief & interlocks; designed to the pressure-vessel & safety code
Sourcing	The heater rods, high-pressure pumps & precision instruments and DAQ hardware are bought-in specialist items; Neometrix engineers & fabricates the loop, test section, piping, structure, safety & the instrumentation & DAQ integration
Status	Engineered to order · sized to the test envelope (pressure, temperature, power, geometry) · quoted across thermal-hydraulic & experimental-loop requirements · no specific delivered facility is claimed on this page

PDF · 1 page

Thermal-Hydraulics Test Facility — Capability Sheet

Tender Response

Send your test envelope & phenomena — compliance matrix in two working days

Variants

One facility, the loop you need.

Tenders call it a thermal-hydraulics test facility, a test loop, a high-temperature high-pressure loop or a boiling test facility. The principle — recreate the conditions, measure the coupled thermal-hydraulics, validate the design — is common; the loop is configured to the phenomena and the test envelope.

Var · 01

HTHP Forced-Circulation Loop

A high-temperature, high-pressure loop with pumped circulation and a heated test section — the general-purpose thermal-hydraulic workhorse.

Var · 02

Natural-Circulation / Passive-Safety Loop

A loop that circulates by density alone, without pumps, to study and qualify passive cooling and passive decay-heat removal.

Var · 03

Boiling & Critical-Heat-Flux Facility

A loop configured to find the critical heat flux (the boiling crisis) and characterise boiling and two-phase heat transfer.

Var · 04

Component / Test-Section Loop

A loop built around a specific component or geometry — a heat exchanger, a rod bundle, a valve or a tube — to characterise it at the real conditions.

Applications

Where it proves the physics.

Wherever coupled heat and flow at high temperature and pressure decide a design — and have to be measured before they are trusted.

A · 01Reactor thermal-hydraulics & safety research

A · 02Passive-safety & natural-circulation qualification

A · 03Critical-heat-flux & boiling studies

A · 04Flow-accelerated corrosion & erosion studies

A · 05Thermal-power & process-plant development

A · 06Analysis-code validation & benchmarking

FAQ

Common questions.

Plain-language answers from the engineering team.

Q · 01 What is a thermal-hydraulics test facility, and why is it needed?

It is a large experimental test loop that recreates, on the ground, the coupled heat-and-flow conditions inside a power plant or reactor — high temperature, high pressure, water and steam — so the thermal-hydraulic behaviour can be measured. It is needed because the phenomena that decide whether a plant is safe — how heat passes into the coolant, how the coolant flows and boils, whether it keeps circulating when the pumps are lost — are coupled, non-linear and hard to predict, and you cannot study them in a running plant, where the whole point is to have understood them in advance. So a dedicated loop reproduces the conditions at full temperature and pressure, drives the working fluid through an instrumented test section, and measures what actually happens. The result is used to validate the design, to underpin the safety case, and to check the computer codes that engineers rely on to predict plant behaviour. In short, it is where thermal-hydraulic assumptions become measured fact — and it is essential to reactor-safety research and to thermal-power and process-plant development.

Q · 02 What does it actually study?

The coupled phenomena of heat transfer and fluid flow, especially the hard cases. Critical heat flux (CHF) — the ‘boiling crisis’, the point at which the heated surface dries out and its temperature runs away — because it sets the safety margin. Two-phase flow — the complicated behaviour of a boiling water-and-steam mixture, its flow patterns and pressure drop. Natural circulation — the coolant continuing to flow by density difference alone, without pumps, which is the basis of modern passive safety. Flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) and erosion — how the flow attacks the metal over time. And the behaviour of specific components and geometries — rod bundles, heat exchangers, valves — at the real conditions. Each of these is measured on a loop configured for it, because each is subtle enough that it must be seen to be believed.

Q · 03 What is in the loop?

A thermal-hydraulic loop is a closed circuit with several key parts. The heated test section — the heart of it — is the instrumented section that recreates the geometry under study and, through electrical heater rods, puts a real, measured heat flux into the flow (often up to MW-scale power). Circulation pumps drive the fluid at the required flow — or, for natural-circulation studies, the loop is arranged so that density differences drive the flow with no pump at all. A pressuriser holds the loop at the required pressure. Condensers, heat exchangers and coolers reject the heat the heaters put in, and close the loop. Throughout, dense instrumentation measures temperature, pressure, flow, level and void fraction, feeding a high-speed data-acquisition and control system. And all of it is carried on a structural frame — a large loop is often several storeys tall — with the high-pressure piping, valves, relief and interlocks that make it safe.

Q · 04 What do you build, and what is bought-in?

We build the loop, and integrate the specialist items into it. The heater rods (specialist high-flux heaters), the high-pressure circulation pumps, and the precision instruments and data-acquisition hardware are bought-in specialist items. What Neometrix engineers, fabricates and integrates is everything that turns them into a working facility: the high-temperature, high-pressure piping and the closed loop, the instrumented test section, the pressuriser, the condensers and heat exchangers, the multi-storey structural frame, the safety (relief, interlocks, protection), and the instrumentation and data-acquisition integration and control — then the assembly and commissioning. This is squarely our competence: it is the same high-pressure vessel, thermal, fluid-system, test-rig and instrumentation engineering behind our high-pressure and thermal test facilities, and we have quoted and built experimental test loops and boiling test facilities. So the specialist physics comes in specialist parts, and the engineered loop that makes them a measured, safe facility is ours. Offered engineered-to-order; no specific delivered facility is claimed on this page.

Q · 05 How do you handle the high temperature and pressure safely?

By designing the whole loop to a recognised pressure-vessel and safety code from the start, and treating safety as part of the machine rather than an add-on. The loop and its components are designed, fabricated and tested to the appropriate pressure-vessel standard for the temperature and pressure they carry; relief devices protect every part of the circuit against over-pressure; the heaters and the loop are interlocked so that a loss of flow, a low level or an over-temperature trips the power before anything is damaged; and the structure is designed to carry the loads, the thermal expansion and the reactions of a large, hot, pressurised loop. Because the working fluid is at high temperature and pressure, the materials, welds and joints are selected and qualified for the duty, and the facility is commissioned in stages up to full conditions. The aim is a facility that produces trustworthy data and is safe for the people who run it, day after day — which is exactly the discipline behind our high-pressure test facilities.

Q · 06 How is it instrumented and controlled?

Densely, and fast — because the whole purpose of the loop is to measure. A thermal-hydraulic experiment lives or dies on its instrumentation: temperatures at many points along and around the test section (fine thermocouples, because the gradients are steep), pressures and pressure drops across the circuit, flow rates, levels, and — for two-phase work — void fraction (how much of the mixture is vapour). These feed a high-speed data-acquisition system that captures fast transients (a boiling crisis happens quickly), together with a control system that sets and holds the heater power, the flow and the pressure and runs the test to a defined sequence, with the safety interlocks always live. We integrate the instrumentation and the data-acquisition and control into the loop, so that the facility does not just create the conditions — it records them, accurately and traceably, which is what makes the data worth having.

↗

The test-facility line from Neometrix.

The high-pressure, thermal and energy test facilities alongside it — engineered at our Noida facility.

↗ High-Pressure Test

HP Air Bottle Test Facility

High-pressure testing to code — the same high-pressure, safety-engineered test discipline.

↗ Thermal / Energy Test

Hydrogen Piston-Engine Test Bench

A thermal, fluid and energy test bench — the same instrumentation-and-control engineering.

↗ Thermal Test

Thermal Vacuum Chamber

Thermal qualification under controlled conditions — the thermal member of the test-facility line.

Browse all Neometrix product lines.

Get a quotation

Send the test envelope
and the phenomena.

Our projects desk replies within two working days with a clause-by-clause compliance matrix and a budgetary quotation. Write to [email protected] or use the form.

Enquire — thermal-hydraulics loop Capability sheet (PDF) +91 7777 876 876

ISO 9001 / 14001 ENGINEERED TO ORDER — THERMAL-HYDRAULICS TEST FACILITY HT/HP TEST LOOP · HEATED TEST SECTION · NATURAL CIRCULATION · CRITICAL HEAT FLUX · INSTRUMENTATION & DAQ ENGINEERED IN NOIDA · INDIA

Heat and flow, under pressure.

You cannot test it in the reactor.

Recreate the conditions

Boiling, two-phase, natural circulation

Instruments bought-in; loop built

Recreate, measure, validate.

The High-Pressure Loop

The Heated Test Section

Instrumentation & Data Acquisition

Fabricate, Integrate & Commission

Reference loop, built to the test envelope.

Where a test loop is won or lost

One facility, the loop you need.

HTHP Forced-Circulation Loop

Natural-Circulation / Passive-Safety Loop

Boiling & Critical-Heat-Flux Facility

Component / Test-Section Loop

Where it proves the physics.

Common questions.

The test-facility line from Neometrix.

HP Air Bottle Test Facility

Hydrogen Piston-Engine Test Bench

Thermal Vacuum Chamber

Send the test envelope
and the phenomena.

Similar Products

Share This Page

Heat and flow, under pressure.

You cannot test it in the reactor.

Recreate the conditions

Boiling, two-phase, natural circulation

Instruments bought-in; loop built

Recreate, measure, validate.

The High-Pressure Loop

The Heated Test Section

Instrumentation & Data Acquisition

Fabricate, Integrate & Commission

Reference loop, built to the test envelope.

Where a test loop is won or lost

One facility, the loop you need.

HTHP Forced-Circulation Loop

Natural-Circulation / Passive-Safety Loop

Boiling & Critical-Heat-Flux Facility

Component / Test-Section Loop

Where it proves the physics.

Common questions.

The test-facility line from Neometrix.

HP Air Bottle Test Facility

Hydrogen Piston-Engine Test Bench

Thermal Vacuum Chamber

Send the test envelopeand the phenomena.

Similar Products

Share This Page

Send the test envelope
and the phenomena.