A reinterpretation of measurements in developing annular two-phase flow

Measurements of developing films in adiabatic high pressure steam-water flow in annular geometry have been reanalyzed and compared to a linearized film-flow model. The development rate of the outer film could be determined with good accuracy in four cases. In one case it was also possible to conclude that the inner film develops faster than the outer one. When compared to the linearized model, these observations show that the deposition rate has to be almost independent of the drop concentration at the investigated conditions. Furthermore, any significant deposition by direct impaction of drops can be excluded as it would couple the development of the two films. These conclusions are quite general and do not depend on the use of any particular correlation for the deposition or entrainment rates. Finally, a rough estimate of the deposition rate was possible, confirming that deposition rates are considerably lower at high pressure steam-water flows than in air-water flows.     

Vertically Downward Two-Phase Flow, (I)

Fully developed vertically downward two-phase flow of air-water mixture was investigated on void distribution and average void fraction among the three basic flow regimes; bubbly, slug and annular flows. The annular flow further was divided into two regimes of falling film flow and annular drop flow. Test channel is in form of inverted U-tube and tests were carried out at 100 tube diameters downstream from the curved part. Distributions of local void fraction were measured by means of a conductance needle probe method and the average void fraction was obtained from numerical integration of the measured local void fraction According to the results, profiles of local void fraction in bubby and slug flows showed characteristic natures with a peak in the middle region between the center and the wall of tube The average void fraction in downward flow depended greatly on the flow regimes. Accordingly correlation for each flow regime was developed to predict the average void fraction, based on flow mechanisms and experiments. The correlations were compared with experimental results for atmospheric air-water flow and showed satisfactory agreement.     

Prediction of the critical heat flux in annular regime in various vertical channels

The axial variation of film flow rate in annular regime was analyzed to predict the critical heat flux in water saturated flow boiling in various vertical channels. In the analyses, several quantities including the deposition and entrainment rates of droplets were evaluated with the correlations that were based on the separate experimental data of film flow rate and droplet flow rate in annular flow; model closure was achieved without introducing arbitrary constants. The predicted results were compared with extensive data of critical heat flux in flow boiling. Fairly good agreements were observed for the critical heat fluxes in round tubes with uniform and axially non-uniform heating and in non-circular shaped channels without sharp corners. It is hence expected that the important processes for the onset of critical heat flux condition in annular regime were satisfactorily described in the model. However, the critical heat fluxes were generally overestimated in thin rectangular channels with sharp corners. The non-uniform distribution of liquid film in channel cross-section would be the primary reason of the disagreement.     

Vertically Downward Two-Phase Flow, (II)

Following Part (I) of the present paper, which presented the experimental results obtained on the void distribution and average void fraction shown by nearly fully-developed, vertically downward two-phase flow of air-water mixture, this Part (?) covers the flow regime transition criteria among the three basic flow regimes : bubbly, slug and annular flows. The annular flow further was divided into two subregions of falling film flow and annular drop flow. The general situation of the transition criteria is as follows : (1) bubbly-to-slug flow transition occurs when the local void fraction in the central region of the tube is 0.3; (2) slug-to-annular drop flow transition criterion is given as a case which equations giving average void fraction for the slug flow and the annular flow are simultaneously satisfied; (3) slug-to-falling film flow transition occurs when the pressure difference between the crest of large wave and the bottom overcomes the surface tension; (4) the occurrence of liquid droplets from wave crests gives the transition criterion between the falling film flow and the annular drop flow.

These criteria were correlated to predict each flow regime boundary respectively considering flow mechanisms or from experimental results. The correlations obtained were compared with published flow regime maps for atmospheric air-water flow and showed satisfactory agreement.     

An investigation of flow characteristics and critical heat flux in vertical upward round tube

Prediction of critical heat flux （CHF） in annular flow is important for the safety of once - through steam generator and the reactor core under accident conditions. The dryout in annular flow occurs at the point where the film is depleted due to entrainment, deposition, and evaporation. The film thickness, film mass flow rate along axial distribution, and CHF are calculated in vertical upward round tube on the basis of a separated flow modcl of annular flow. The theoretical CHF values are higher than those derived from experimental data, with error being within 30%.     

基于WMS的无旋和螺旋气液两相流流型及空泡份额实验研究

为探究气液两相流流型从无旋状态转变为螺旋状态前后的流型特征及空泡份额时空分布特性,基于高速摄影仪和自主开发的丝网传感器（WMS）测量技术,对内径为30 mm的水平管内起旋装置作用下空气-水两相流的相态时空演变特性进行了可视化实验研究。结果表明,在起旋器诱导的离心力作用下,流场内存在明显的气泡聚并行为和液滴沉积现象,其中,泡状流将转变为螺旋气柱流,塞状流转变为螺旋间歇流,弹状流转变为螺旋环状流,环状流转变为螺旋丝带流;相比于弹状流和环状流,泡状流和塞状流的截面平均空泡份额在起旋器出口波动幅值明显减弱,但离心力场并未明显改变各流型从无旋状态转变为螺旋状态前后的截面平均空泡份额。      

Droplet deposition measurement with high-speed camera and novel high-speed liquid film sensor with high spatial resolution

A sensor based on the electrical conductance method is presented for the measurement of dynamic liquid films in two-phase flow. The so called liquid film sensor consists of a matrix with 64 × 16 measuring points, a spatial resolution of 3.12 mm and a time resolution of 10 kHz. Experiments in a horizontal co-current air-water film flow were conducted to test the capability of the sensor to detect droplet deposition from the gas core onto the liquid film. The experimental setup is equipped with the liquid film sensor and a high speed camera (HSC) recording the droplet deposition with a sampling rate of 10 kHz simultaneously. In some experiments the recognition of droplet deposition on the sensor is enhanced by marking the droplets with higher electrical conductivity. The comparison between the HSC and the sensor shows, that the sensor captures the droplet deposition above a certain droplet diameter. The impacts of droplet deposition can be filtered from the wavy structures respectively conductivity changes of the liquid film using a filter algorithm based on autoregression. The results will be used to locally measure droplet deposition e.g. in the proximity of spacers in a subchannel geometry.     

Freezing technique for measuring and predicting the size of droplets in a horizontal annular flow

A freezing technique for measuring the size of droplets was developed to obtain the droplet size distribution in a horizontal annular flow in a pipe with a 37.1 mm diameter. Droplets are frozen by using an extremely low temperature nitrogen gas with liquid film extraction. They are then photographed with a microscope and a CCD camera and measured by means of an image process. The results are compared with various experimental data. The droplet sizes measured by the freezing technique are comparable with those measured by other methods at a high air superficial velocity (of 50 m/s). However, because of the film extraction problem, the droplet sizes measured at a low air superficial velocity of less than 40 m/s are higher than those measured by other methods. A suggested method of predicting the Sauter mean diameter is based on the maximum droplet size correlation for the experimental data, with and without liquid film extraction. The average droplet size is remarkably smaller downstream of the liquid film extractor because large droplets from the liquid film are excluded.     

Phenomenological prediction of CHF under boiling water reactor (BWR) conditions

Critical Heat Flux (CHF) is an important parameter for the thermal design of any heat generating system, most importantly, nuclear reactors. Owing to the complex mechanisms of CHF there has been a large proliferation of the correlations, each having narrow range of validity, which shows that the empirical correlation is not an appropriate approach for the CHF prediction for a wide range of validity. This limitation has led to the development of the phenomenological approach of the CHF prediction. The film dryout mechanism is applicable to the high quality CHF corresponding to the annular flow pattern in which the progressive depletion of the liquid film leads to dryout. The basic concern in the prediction of dryout is the accuracy in the evaluation of the droplet deposition and entrainment. There are various models for the estimation of the entrainment and deposition of droplets. However, most of these models are based on the air-water data at the atmospheric conditions and hence their applicability to the BWR conditions needs to be confirmed. Some of the models are based on the steam-water data which needs to be validated for the dryout prediction under BWR conditions. In this paper, the film dryout modelling has been carried out for the prediction of CHF using appropriate models for entrainment fraction and deposition coefficient. The results have been compared with the CHF data generated to substantiate the appropriateness of the selected models under BWR conditions.     

摇摆状态下窄矩形通道内两相流流型特性研究

以空气和水为工质,在40mm×1.6mm的窄矩形通道内对竖直状态和摇摆状态下两相流流型进行了研究。流型由拍摄照片辨别,实验通道内观察到的流型有泡状流、弹状流、搅混流和环状流,绘制出窄矩形通道内的流型图,并与常规尺寸圆管内两相流型进行了对比。摇摆对窄矩形通道内流型的影响与常规尺寸圆管相似,但由于狭小空间的限制及表面张力的作用,摇摆对两相流动并无明显影响。     

Occurrence of critical heat flux during blowdown with flow reversal

A small-scale experiment using Freon-11 at 54°C and 450 kPa in a transparent annular test section was used to study the occurrence of critical heat flux (CHF) during blowdown with flow reversal. The transients were initiated by simultaneous operation of three air-actuated values. The inner tube of the annulus was uniformly heated over its 0.61-m length while the outer transparent pyrex wall was unheated. Test section instrumentation included seven pressure taps, inlet and outlet capacitance void probes, inlet and outlet turbine flowmeters, inlet and outlet fluid thermocouples, and 22 wall thermocouples. High-speed motion pictures were taken of the lower end of the test section where the intial CHF occurred. From these high-speed pictures, the flow reversal was observed to occur between 60 and 80 ms followed by a rapid thermal excursion at about 400 ms in the lower regions of the test section. Consequently, this measured CHF occurred well after the flow had reversed and re-established itself in the downward direction. At about 300 ms an annuflar flow pattern appeared and was well-developed at 400 ms. Therefore, the early CHF measured were all associated with the transition from bubbly to annular flows. In some cases this early CHF was rewet and the heated section remained in a stable coolable state for a considerable length of time, and experienced a later CHF when the liquid was nearly depleted. This long-term dryout was a function of the liquid volume contained in the system, whereas the early CHF was independent of the system volume. In addition, the early CHF did not show any significant sign of propagation whereas the latter one was observed to propagate smoothly upward.     

Wall pressure measurements of flooding in vertical countercurrent annular air-water flow

An experimental study of flooding in countercurrent air-water annular flow in a large diameter vertical tube using wall pressure measurements is described in this paper. Axial pressure profiles along the length of the test section were measured up to and after flooding using fast response pressure transducers for three representative liquid flow rates representing a wide range of liquid Reynolds numbers (Re_L = 4Γ/μ; Γ is the liquid mass flow rate per unit perimeter; μ is the dynamic viscosity) from 3341 to 19,048. The results show that flooding in large diameter tubes cannot be initiated near the air outlet and is only initiated near the air inlet. Fourier analysis of the wall pressure measurements shows that up to the point of flooding, there is no dominant wave frequency but rather a band of frequencies encompassing both the low frequency and the broad band that are responsible for flooding. The data indicates that flooding in large diameter vertical tubes may be caused by the constructive superposition of a plurality of waves rather than the action of a single large-amplitude wave.     

An improved mixing-length model for annular two-phase flow with liquid entrainment

A differential model for adiabatic, fully developed, annular two-phase flow with liquid entrainment has been developed. The model is based on a modified form of the single-phase mixing length function to account for turbulence intensity attenuation due to the presence of entrained liquid droplets in the gas core. Simultaneous predictions of pressure drop and average film thickness for given flow rates show good agreement with a wide range of experimental results for various fluids at several pressures in a range of tube diameters for both horizontal and vertical (upwards and downwards) flows.     

基于两相CFD方法的竖直圆管环状流预测研究

基于欧拉-拉格朗日方法,结合壁面液膜模型,模拟圆管环状流中的液滴与连续气相的相互作用、液滴在壁面处的沉积与夹带、液膜的沸腾与蒸发等关键物理现象。通过与瑞典皇家理工学院的环状流实验结果比较,评价欧拉-拉格朗日方法对环状流的预测精度。比较结果表明,数值模拟得到的液膜质量流量与实验测量结果吻合良好,证明所采用欧拉-拉格朗日方法及本构模型能够较准确地模拟环状流动。      

垂直向上圆管环状流临界热流密度研究

预测高含汽量下的临界热流密度对于直流蒸汽发生器和事故工况下反应堆堆芯的安全性具有工程价值.本文基于液滴夹带、沉积和液膜蒸发理论,对垂直向上的均匀加热圆管内环状流的液膜厚度和液膜质量流速沿轴向的变化进行了预测.结果表明,当液膜蒸干时,干涸发生,此时的热流密度即为临界热流密度.将理论计算的临界热流密度值与实测值相比较,实验数据偏高,偏差在30%以内.     

蒸汽发生器一级汽水分离器内流场数值模拟

以压水堆核电厂蒸汽发生器一级汽水分离器为研究对象，采用基于计算流体动力学（CFD）的计算软件ANSYS Fluent对湿蒸汽进入汽水分离器后的流场特性和汽水分离性能进行模拟，在模拟过程中采用了欧拉多相流模型和k-ε Realizable湍流模型相结合的计算模型。对工质流经汽水分离器的模拟结果表明，在汽相与液相经由汽水分离器流至各自出口时，出现明显的分层现象。对比不同切向出口和不同液滴粒径下的模拟结果表明，出口面积越大，汽水分离器对液滴的分离效果越好；在0.01~0.10 mm的粒径范围内，液滴粒径越大，分离效果越好。对不同负荷条件下汽水分离器分离效率的模拟结果表明，分离效率随机组负荷升高略有降低。      

通道尺寸对竖直向上气-水两相流流型影响实验研究

本文以空气和水为工质,对竖直向上矩形通道(40 mm×1.41 mm,40 mm×10 mm)和圆形通道(D=25 mm)内的两相流流型特性进行了可视化研究。气液两相的表观速度分别为：0.03～24.71 m/s和0.03～3.73 m/s。3个实验段内均出现了泡状流、弹状流、搅混流和环状流4种流型,40 mm×10 mm和圆形通道中流型特征较为接近,与40 mm×1.41 mm通道中流型相比存在明显差别。此外,绘制出了3种通道详细的流型图。对比结果显示,矩形通道窄边宽度对流型转变有显著的影响,随着矩形通道窄边宽度的增加,其流型转变边界更加趋近于圆形通道。     

Simulation of drop deposition process in annular mist flow using three-dimensional particle method

The three-dimensional moving particle semi-implicit (MPS) method is employed to simulate the deposition process of single droplet on the liquid film. The model accounts for the presence of inertial, gravitation, viscous and surface tension and is validated by comparison with experimental results. The parameters of liquid droplets and film are calculated by a one-dimensional mixture model in which correlations and methods on void fraction, entrainment fraction and droplet velocity and size distribution are employed. The simulation results are analyzed to study the effect of splash on the deposition and re-entrainment processes in annular-mist flow. It is found that splash plays an important role in the deposition and re-entrainment processes in high quality conditions of BWR.     

Type of flow, pressure drop, and critical heat flux of a two-phase sodium flow

Little is known about the two-phase pressure loss, the flow pattern, and the critical heat flux conditions for boiling sodium under forced convection. The specific thermohydraulic properties of sodium prohibit extrapolation to sodium of experimental data obtained for other liquids. Therefore, some new test series were carried out in a sodium loop with an induction heated test section of 9 mm inner diameter and 200 mm heated length. The two-phase pressure loss and the film thickness were measured up to the critical cooling conditions. The experimental results are compared with values predicted by known models on annular flow and annular mist flow, respectively. Satisfactory predictions of the flow pattern and the critical heat flux conditions could only be obtained using the measured two-phase pressure losses.     

Experimental studies on rewetting of hot vertical annular channel

Studies on the rewetting behaviour of hot vertical annular channels are of interest in the context of emergency core cooling in nuclear reactors following LOCA. Experimental studies were carried out to study the rewetting behaviour of a hot vertical annular channel, with hot inner tube, for bottom flooding and top flow rewetting conditions. The length of the inner tube of the test section was 3030 mm for bottom flooding rewetting experiments and 2630 mm for top flow rewetting experiments. The tube was made of stainless steel. Experiments were conducted for water flow rates in the annulus upto 7 lpm (11.7×10⁻⁵ m³ s⁻¹). The initial surface temperature of the inner tube was varied from 200 to 500°C. The experimental studies show that for a given initial surface temperature of the tube, the rewetting velocity increases with an increase in flow rate of water and it decreases with an increase in the initial surface temperature for a given water flow rate. For a given water flow rate and initial surface temperature, the rewetting velocity is higher in the case of rewetting under bottom flooding conditions as compared to that in the case of rewetting under top flow conditions. These conclusions agree with the conclusions reported in the earlier literature. Using the experimental data of the present work, correlations for bottom flooding and top flow rewetting velocities are developed.