Experimental Investigation and RELAP5 Modeling of Two-Phase Flow in Horizontal Rectangular Channel

The investigation of steam, water, and air flow characteristics in horizontal channel is a part of major investigations program at the Lithuanian Energy Institute. The objective of this program is to identify condensation effects on two-phase flow stability and to predict conditions when rapid condensation could be induced in two-phase condensable flow. This article presents investigation of steam–water and air multiphase flow in nearly horizontal rectangular channel. The experimental data for pressure drop and interfacial and wall shear stresses in the channel with uniform distribution of void fraction are presented in this paper. Overall channel dimensions are length = 1.2 m, width = 0.02 m, height = 0.1 m; however, the test section was about 0.84 m in length. Three different flow types were analyzed at atmospheric pressure: (1) single-phase air flow (height of the channel was reduced to 0.075 m); (2) non-condensable air–water two-phase flow at void fraction of 0.75; (3) two-phase steam–water flow at almost saturation conditions, and void fraction of 0.75. RELAP5 Mod3.3 code was selected to model test cases. Modeling results and experimental measurements show good agreement with each other. The developed model will be used for calculating different cases of the process.