Critical heat flux under zero flow conditions in vertical annulus with uniformly and non-uniformly heated sections

The experimental study of water CHF (critical heat flux) under zero flow conditions has been carried out in an annulus flow channel with uniformly and non-uniformly heated sections over a pressure range of 0.52–14.96 MPa. In the present boiling system, the CHFs occur in the upper region of the heated section, in contrast to the results in the experiments for boiling tubes conducted by several investigators. The general trend of the CHF with pressure is that the CHF increases up to a medium pressure of about 6–8 MPa and decreases as the pressure is further increased. A comparison of the present data with the existing flooding CHF correlations shows that the correlations depend greatly on the effect of the heat flux distribution. When the correction terms with the density ratio and the effect of the heat flux distribution proposed in the present work are used with the CHF correlation based on the Wallis flooding correlation, it predicts the measured flooding CHF within an RMS error of 9.0%.     

An experimental study on the critical heat flux for low flow of water in a non-uniformly heated vertical rod bundle over a wide range of pressure conditions

An experimental study of the critical heat flux (CHF) has been performed for a water flow in a non-uniformly heated vertical 3 × 3 rod bundle under low flow and a wide range of pressure conditions. The experiment was especially focused on the parametric trends of the CHF and the applicability of the conventional CHF correlations to a return-to-power conditions of a main steam line break accident whose conditions might be a low mass flux, intermediate pressure, and a high inlet subcooling. The effects of the mass flux and pressure on the CHF are relatively large and complicated in the low pressure conditions. At a high mass flux or a low critical quality, the local heat flux at the CHF location sharply decreases with an increasing local critical quality. However, at a low mass flux or a high critical quality, the local heat flux at the CHF location shows a nearly constant value regardless of the increase of the critical quality. The CHF data at the very low mass flux conditions are correlated well by the churn-to-annular flow transition criterion or the flow reversal phenomena. Several conventional CHF correlations predict the present return-to-power CHF data with reasonable accuracies. However, the prediction capabilities become worse in a very low mass flux of below about 100 kg/(m² s).     

Effect of pressure on critical heat flux in uniformly heated vertical annulus under low flow conditions

Critical heat flux (CHF) experiments have been carried out in a wide range of pressure for an internally heated vertical annulus. The experimental conditions covered a range of pressure from 0.57 to 15.01 MPa, mass fluxes of 0 kg m⁻² s⁻¹ and from 200 to 650 kg m⁻² s⁻¹, and inlet subcoolings from 85 to 413 kJ kg⁻¹. Most of the CHFs were identified to the dryout of the liquid film in the annular-mist flow. For the mass fluxes of 550 and 650 kg m⁻² s⁻¹, the CHFs had a maximum value at a pressure of 2–3 MPa, and the pressure at the maximum CHF values had a trend moving toward the pressure at the peak value of pool boiling CHF as the mass flux decreased. The CHF data under a zero mass flux condition indicate that both the effects of pressure and inlet subcooling on the CHF were smaller, compared with those for the CHF with a net water upflow. The Doerffer correlation using the 1995 CHF look-up table and the Bowring correlation show a good prediction capability for the present CHF data.     

Development of a bundle correction method and its application to predicting CHF in rod bundles

A bundle correction method, based on the conservation laws of mass, energy, and momentum in an open subchannel, is proposed for the prediction of the critical heat flux (CHF) in rod bundles from round tube CHF correlations without detailed subchannel analysis. It takes into account the effects of the enthalpy and mass velocity distributions at subchannel level using the first derivatives of CHF with respect to the independent parameters. Three different CHF correlations for tubes (Groeneveld's CHF table, Katto correlation, and Biasi correlation) have been examined with uniformly heated bundle CHF data collected from various sources. A limited number of CHF data from a non-uniformly heated rod bundle are also evaluated with the aid of Tong's F-factor. The proposed method shows satisfactory CHF predictions for rod bundles both uniform and non-uniform power distributions.     

临界热流密度的人工神经网络预测法

本文成功地训练了3种用于预测临界热流密度(CHF)的人工神经网络,其输入参数分别是系统压力、质量流速、平衡含汽量;其输出参数是CHF.通过人工神经网络,分析了压力、流量、热平衡含汽量和进口过冷度对CHF的影响,且成功地将人工神经网络应用于CHF的预测中,预测结果与实验值符合很好.分析结果表明:人工神经网络训练的3种类型中,类型Ⅱ的预测精度最高,可达±10%.     

Experimental study on the effect of angles and positions of mixing vanes on CHF in a 2 × 2 rod bundle with working fluid R-134a

In this paper, the CHF experiment on the effect of angles and position of mixing vanes was performed in a 2 × 2 rod bundle. The test section had rectangular geometry in which four rod, each with a diameter of 9.5 mm, were inserted. The rod-to-rod gap was 3.15 mm, and the rod-to-wall gap was 1.575 mm. It was vertically installed in the test loop and was uniformly heated by electricity. The heating length was 1.125 m. The working fluid was R-134a. The mass flux ranged from 1000 to 1800 kg/m². The test pressure ranged from 14.67 to 25.67 bar. CHF data in the 2 × 2 rod bundle without a mixing vane were compared to the Bowring correlation and a CHF look-up table at equivalent hydraulic diameter. For this comparison, Katto's fluid-to-fluid model is applied. The results had a good agreement with error rates of 16 and 20%. In the CHF experiment with the mixing vanes with various angles, the angles of the mixing vanes were 20–40°. The CHF enhancement ratio (CER) was largest at 30°. CHF was enhanced up to 19%. A CHF experiment on the position of the mixing vane was also performed. In the experiment on the position of mixing vane, CER was reduced with increasing distance between grid and CHF location because swirl flow decayed. We also performed the CHF experiment on mixing vane developed by KAIST.     

Investigation of pre- and post-dryout heat transfer of steam-water two-phase flow in a rod bundle

Pre- and post-dryout heat transfer experiments were performed for steam-water two-phase flow in a 5 × 5 rod bundle under conditions of total mass fluxes from 80 to 320 kg/m²s, inlet qualities from 0.1 to 0.8, heat fluxes from 3 to 26 W/cm² and a pressure of 3 MPa. Heater rod surface temperatures or heat transfer coefficients predicted by several correlations were compared with experimental data with emphasis on the applicability of the correlations to the present experimental conditions which were pertinent to thermal-hydraulic conditions during a LOCA in a nuclear reactor. The Chen and Biorge et al. correlations underestimated heat transfer coefficients in the pre-dryout region. The Varone-Rohsenow prediction which accounted for the thermal nonequilibrium effect, calculated heater rod surface temperatures relatively well in the post-dryout region over the whole region of the present experimental conditions. The Dittus-Boelter and Groeneveld correlations predicted heater rod surface temperatures relatively well in the post-dryout region under high total mass flux conditions, but underestimated considerably under low total mass flux conditions.     

Critical heat flux of forced convection boiling in an oscillating acceleration field — III. Reduction mechanism of CHF in subcooled flow boiling

To investigate the effect of variation in acceleration on the critical heat flux (CHF) in subcooled flow boiling, a photographic study was made. The test section was an internally heated vertical annulus with a glass shroud, in which Freon-113 flowed upwardly. The observation was made at a pressure of 3 bar, a mass flux of 920 kg/m²s, an inlet subcooling 45 K and a slightly lower heat flux level than steady CHF. The vertical acceleration was oscillated with amplitude of 0.3g_e and a period of 6 s.At low apparent gravitational acceleration, bubbles generated on the heated surface moved longer along the surface without detachment and coalesced with other bubbles to form large vapor slugs. This causes early CHF, the mechanism of which is dry-out of the liquid film existing between the heated surface and vapor slugs.     

Critical heat flux of water in vertical round tubes at low pressure and low flow conditions

An experimental study on critical heat flux (CHF) has been performed for water flow in vertical round tubes under low pressure and low flow (LPLF) conditions to provide a systematic data base and to investigate parametric trends. Totally 513 experimental data have been obtained with Inconel-625 tube test sections in the following conditions: diameter of 6, 8, 10 and 12 mm; heated length of 0.31.77 m; pressure of 106951 kPa; mass flux of 20277 kg m⁻² s⁻¹; and inlet subcooling of 50654 kJ kg⁻¹, thermodynamic equilibrium critical quality of 0.3231.251 and CHF of 1081598 kW m⁻². Flow regime analysis based on Mishima & Ishii’s flow regime map indicates that most of the CHF occurred due to liquid film dryout in annular-mist and annular flow regimes. Parametric trends are examined from two different points of view: fixed inlet conditions and fixed exit conditions. The parametric trends are generally consistent with previous understandings except for the complex effects of system pressure and tube diameter. Finally, several prediction models are assessed with the measured data; the typical mechanistic liquid film dryout model and empirical correlations of (Shah, M.M., 1987. Heat Fluid Flow 8 (4), 326–335; Baek, W.P., Kim, H.G., Chang, S.H., 1997. KAIST critical heat flux correlation for water flow in vertical round tubes, NUTHOS-5, Paper No. AA5) show good predictions. The measured CHF data are listed in Appendix B for future reference.     

Critical heat fluxes of subcooled water flow boiling in a short vertical tube at high liquid Reynolds number

The steady state critical heat fluxes (CHFs) and the heat transfer of the subcooled water flow boiling for the flow velocities (u = 17.2-42.4 m/s), the inlet subcoolings (ΔT_sub,in = 80.9-147.6 K), the inlet pressures (P_in = 812.1-1181.5 kPa) and the exponentially increasing heat input (Q₀ exp(t/τ), τ = 8.5 s) are systematically measured by the experimental water loop comprised of a new multi-stage canned-type circulation pump with high pump head. The SUS304 test tube of inner diameter (d = 6 mm), heated length (L = 59.5 mm), L/d = 9.92 and wall thickness (δ = 0.5 mm) with surface roughness (Ra = 3.18 μm) is used in this work. The steady state CHFs of the subcooled water flow boiling for the flow velocities ranging from 17.2 to 42.4 m/s are clarified. The steady state CHFs are compared with the values calculated by our transient CHF correlations against outlet and inlet subcoolings based on the experimental data for the flow velocities ranging from 4.0 to 13.3 m/s. The influence of flow velocity at high liquid Reynolds number on the subcooled flow boiling CHF is investigated in detail and the widely and precisely predictable correlations of the transient CHF correlations against outlet and inlet subcoolings in a short vertical tube are derived based on the experimental data at high liquid Reynolds number. The transient CHF correlations can describe the subcooled flow boiling CHFs for the wide range of flow velocities at high liquid Reynolds number obtained in this work within ±15% difference.     

Fluid-to-fluid modeling of critical heat flux in 4 × 4 rod bundles

Fluid-to-fluid modeling of critical heat flux (CHF) is to simulate the CHF behaviors for water by employing low cost modeling fluid, and the flow scaling factor is the key to apply the technique to fuel bundles. The CHF experiments in 4×4 rod bundles have been carried out in Freon-12 loop in equivalent nuclear reactor water conditions (P=10.0–16.0 MPa, G=488.0–2100.0 kg/m² s, X_cr=−0.20–0.30). The models in fluid-to-fluid modeling of CHF is verified by the CHF data for Freon-12 obtained in the experiment and the CHF correlation for water obtained by Nuclear Power Institute of China (NPIC) in the same 4×4 rod bundles. It has been found that the S.Y. Ahmad Compensation Distortion model, the Lu Zhongqi model, the Groeneveld model and Stevens–Kirby model overpredict the bundles CHF values for water. Then an empirical correlation of flow scaling factor is proposed. Comparison of the CHF data in two kinds of test sections for Freon-12, in which the distance of the last grid away the end of heated length is different, shows that the spacer grid, which is located at 20 mm away from the end of the heated length, has evidently influenced on the CHF value in the 4×4 rod bundles for Freon-12. This is different from that for water, and the need for further work is required.     

Density Wave Instability in Once-Through Boiling Flow System, (I)

Density wave instability in a once-through boiling flow system was systematically observed using a uniformly joule-heated water loop operated at system pressures ranging from 20 to 43 ata. The test section consisted of two heated tubes connected in parallel and further paralleled by an unheated by-pass. The oscillatory behavior is analyzed as well as the effects brought on the threshold of instability by changes in the operating variables—mass velocity, system pressure, inlet resistance, inlet subcooling, by-pass ratio and exit quality. The experimental data are also presented in form convenient for verifying various analytical methods devised to predict the stability boundary.     

Critical heat flux at high velocity channel flow with high subcooling

A quantitative analysis of critical heat flux (CHF) in heated channels under high mass flux with high subcooling was successfully carried out by applying a new flow model to the existing CHF model of a macro-water-sublayer on the heated wall and steam blankets over it. The CHF correlation proposed could correctly predict the existing experimental data for circular tubes of 0.33–4 mm in diameter with mass flux of 124–90 000 kg (m² s)⁻¹ and inlet water subcooling of 35–210 K at 0.1–7.1 MPa, resulting in CHF of 4.2–224 MW m⁻², and for rectangular channels of 3–20 mm gap with a mass flux of 940–27 000 kg (m² s)⁻¹ and inlet water subcooling of 13–166 K at 0.1–3.0 MPa, resulting in CHF of 2.0–62 MW m⁻². An error of the CHF correlation has also been estimated.     

The influence of walls and upper tie plate slots on the flooding mechanism in fuel elements with and without heat transfer between steam and water

The counter-current flow of steam and water was experimentally investigated for the upper part of a PWR fuel element. The actual geometrical shape of the nuclear equipment was simulated by various types of plates, in which bore holes and slots were arranged in different positions. The experiments were performed with and without an installed, unheated rod bundle below the plates. The water was injected at saturated and subcooled temperatures in order to observe the effects of heat transfer on counter-current flow.

With increasing steam velocity the flooding occurs initially in the tie-plate area. If the rod bundle is installed in the flow duct, a part of the downwards flowing water is transported upwards from the region of the upper grid spacer to the plate. Heat transfer between the phases can cause in the counter-current flow region an instable transition from downward to near complete upward directed liquid flow. In comparison to experiments with saturated water injection, flooding occurs at larger steam velocities. Different flooding correlations, which are known from the literature, were compared with the experimental data to appraise their applicability to counter-current flow in the core of PWRs.     

Critical heat flux and flow pattern for water flow in annular geometry

An experimental study on critical heat flux (CHF) and two-phase flow visualization has been performed for water flow in internally-heated, vertical, concentric annuli under near atmospheric pressure. Tests have been done under stable forced-circulation, upward and downward flow conditions with three test sections of relatively large gap widths (heated LENGTH = 0.6 m, inner DIAMETER = 19 mm, outer DIAMETER = 29, 35 and 51 mm). The outer wall of the test section was made up of the transparent Pyrex tube to allow the observation of flow patterns near the CHF occurrence. The CHF mechanism was changed in the order of flooding, churn-to-annular flow transition and local dryout under a large bubble in churn flow as the flow rate was increased from zero to higher values. Observed parametric trends are consistent with the previous understanding except that the CHF for downward flow is considerably lower than that for the upward flow. In addition to the experiment, selected CHF correlations for annuli are assessed based on 1156 experimental data from various sources. The Doerffer et al. (1994); Barnett (1966); Jannsen and Kervinen (1963); Levitan and Lantsman (1977) correlations show reasonable predictions for wide parameter ranges, among which the Doerffer et al. (1994) correlation shows the widest parameter ranges and a possibility of further improvement. However, there is no correlation predicting the low-pressure, low-flow CHF satisfactorily.     

Critical heat flux of forced convection boiling in an oscillating acceleration field — I. General trends

The influence of periodically varying acceleration on critical heat flux (CHF) of Freon-113 flowing upward in a uniformly heated vertical annular channel has been studied experimentally. The freon loop was oscillated vertically to determine the ratio of CHF in the oscillating acceleration field to the corresponding stationary value. The amplitude of inlet flow oscillation induced by variation of acceleration, which causes early CHF, is proportional to the acceleration amplitude. The dependence of inlet flow rate on the oscillating acceleration decreases with increasing inlet subcooling, and no oscillation of inlet flow is observed in the case of negative exit quality (subcooled boiling). Nevertheless the degradation of CHF is more remarkable in the low quality region. This result suggests the necessity to introduce an other mechanism of early CHF than flow oscillation.     

基于RELAP5的ERVC两相自然循环能力研究

利用RELAP5程序建立压力容器外部冷却（ERVC）系统模型,在水淹平衡条件下分析不同的安全壳内压力、冷却水过冷度、加热功率和水淹水位对系统两相自然流动能力的影响,找到各工况下的临界过冷度和不稳定性边界。结果表明：AP1000的ERVC系统设计具有很大裕量,仅依靠自然循环就可通过下封头对熔池进行有效冷却;安全壳内压力越高、冷却水过冷度越低、加热功率越大、水淹水位越高,两相自然循环流量越高。但当加热功率水平较低时,压力对临界过冷度影响不大;冷却水过冷度低于临界值时,会发生剧烈的倒流和流量震荡现象;当水淹水位低于5.5 m时,不能建立稳定的两相自然循环流动。     

低压高过冷度下自然循环流动不稳定性实验研究

对具有长直上升段的自然循环系统,开展了流动不稳定性实验研究。同时,详细分析了低压、高入口过冷度条件下典型的流动不稳定现象。实验表明：自然循环系统的结构、流体的热边界条件会影响自然循环的运行特性及流动不稳定性类型。较高入口过冷度下,高热流密度导致系统脱离稳态后,很难重新回到稳定的两相自然循环流动状态。随着热流密度的提高,系统会经历间歇沸腾、复合动态流动不稳定性等状态。依据实验结果得到了高入口过冷度下的不稳定性边界图。在两相振荡期间,自然循环驱动压头和回路阻力的主要影响因素集中在长直上升段和加热段。加热段出口积聚的大量气泡对上、下游流体的强烈挤压作用是流量大幅振荡及逆流的主要原因。     

Application of an Artificial Neural Network in Reactor Thermohydraulic Problem: Prediction of Critical Heat Flux

A new method for predicting Critical Heat Flux (CHF) with the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) method is presented in this paper. The ANNs were trained based on three conditions: type I (inlet or upstream conditions), II (local or CHF point conditions) and III (outlet or downstream conditions). The best condition for predicting CHF is type II, providing an accuracy of ±10%. The effects of main parameters such as pressure, mass flow rate, equilibrium quality and inlet subcooling on CHF were analyzed using the ANN. Critical heat flux under oscillation flow conditions was also predicted.     

The effect of flow direction and magnitude on CHF for low pressure water in thin rectangular channels

Critical heat flux (CHF) at low flow condition can become important in an MTR-type research reactor under a number of accident conditions. Regardless of the initial stages of these accidents, a condition which is basically the decay heat removal by natural convention boiling can develop. Under such conditions, burnout may occur even at a very low heat flux. In view of this, the CHF at low-flow-rate and low-pressure conditions has been studied for water flowing in thin rectangular channels.Experiments were carried out with two types of rectangular test sections, namely, the one heated from one wide side and the other heated from two opposite sides. In order to observe the effects of gravity, CHF was measured both in upflow and downflow. The CHF at complete bottom blockage was also studied.The results indicate that burnout can occur at a much lower heat flux than pool-boiling CHF or than predicted by the conventional correlations. There was observed a minimum CHF at complete bottom blockage and at very low downflow. The low CHF at very low downflow appears to be due to the stagnation of the bubble in the heated section. This fact indicates that special care should be taken in analyzing the boiling phenomenon which occurs when the coolant flow is very low in a low pressure system.