Study on the Four-Quadrant Homologous Characteristic and Two-Phase Flow Head Degradation of a Reactor Coolant Pump

2021 ◽  
Vol 143 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bin Huang ◽  
Meimei Zhang ◽  
Kexin Pu ◽  
Peng Wu ◽  
Dazhuan Wu

Abstract This paper studies the four-quadrant homologous characteristic and analyzes the gas–liquid two-phase flow head degradation of ACP100 reactor coolant pump. The theoretical basis and the operating conditions of the pump's four-quadrant homologous characteristic are introduced. To verify the reliability of the computational fluid dynamics (CFD), the comparison of the results from CFD and test is implemented, and with these datum for the pump is plotted with homologous curves. In this paper, homologous pump characteristics are used to make the proper estimation on complete characteristic outside the testing range. Meanwhile, a combined method of impeller Euler head distribution and entropy generation rate analysis are applied for the head degradation of ACP100 reactor coolant pump under gas–liquid two-phase flow condition, and 70% of gas void fraction (GVF) is shown as the maximum degradation point. In addition, head degradation multiplier plots homologous curves are used to predict the homologous characteristic of specific GVF.

1964 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. P. Mikol ◽  
J. C. Dudley

Data and observations obtained during the study of two-phase flow phenomena for refrigerants flowing in small bore copper and glass tubes have been examined for their significance to the cavitation. Visual and photographic observations have been made of the inception of vaporization and of the movement of the point of inception as operating conditions are varied. Liquid tension has been deduced as occurring in these tests. Liquid tension and cavitation index data are presented. The experimental method is recommended as a means for studying many aspects of the phenomenon of cavitation.


Author(s):  
Shao-Wen Chen ◽  
Caleb S. Brooks ◽  
Chris Macke ◽  
Takashi Hibiki ◽  
Mamoru Ishii ◽  
...  

In order to investigate the possible effect of seismic vibration on two-phase flow dynamics and thermal-hydraulics of a nuclear reactor, experimental tests of adiabatic air-water two-phase flow under low-frequency vibration were carried out in this study. An eccentric cam vibration module operated at low motor speed (up to 390rpm) was attached to an annulus test section which was scaled down from a prototypic BWR fuel assembly sub-channel. The inner and outer diameters of the annulus are 19.1mm and 38.1mm, respectively. The two-phase flow operating conditions cover the ranges of 0.03≤<jg> ≤1.46m/s and 0.25≤<jf>≤1.00m/s and the vibration displacement ranges from ±0.8mm to ±22.2mm. Steady-state area-averaged instantaneous and time-averaged void fraction was recorded and analyzed in stationary and vibration experiments. A neural network flow regime identification technique and fast Fourier transformation (FFT) analysis were introduced to analyze the flow regimes and void signals under stationary and vibration conditions. Experimental results reveal possible changes in flow regimes under specific flow and vibration conditions. In addition, the instantaneous void fraction signals were affected and shown by FFT analysis. Possible reasons for the changes include the applied high acceleration and/or induced resonance at certain ports under the specific flow and vibration conditions.


Author(s):  
Arganthae¨l Berson ◽  
Jon G. Pharoah

Efficient water management is crucial for the good performances of proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). The geometric and physical characteristics of the components of a PEMFC as well as operating conditions have an impact on the transport of water through the porous transport layer (PTL) and the two-phase flow regimes in the microchannels. One parameter of importance is the local temperature, which affects properties such as surface tension and is coupled with phase change. Indeed, a temperature difference of about 5K is expected across the PTL, with spatial variations due to the geometry of the flow field plate. We present preliminary results obtained with a first experimental setup for the ex-situ characterization of two-phase flow regimes in the flow channels. Water is pushed through the PTL, which is sandwiched between a porous metal foam and the flow field plate. The air flow rate, temperature and humidity can be controlled. The cell can be heated up by applying an electrical current through the metal foam. A transparent window is located on top of the flow channel. The two-phase flow within the micro-channels is visualized using a high-speed camera and laser-induced fluorescence. Preliminary results obtained under isothermal conditions at room temperature show that different two-phase flow regimes occur in the channels depending on the operating conditions, in good qualitative agreement with data from the literature. Eventually, a new visualization cell is presented that is expected to correct the flaws of the previous design and will allow a better thermal control. It will be possible to adjust the temperature gradient and the mean temperature in order to observe their impact on two-phase flow regimes for different types of PTL and flow rates. The results will provide a better understanding of water transport in PEMFC and benchmark data for the validation of numerical models.


Author(s):  
Viral K. Patel ◽  
Jamal Seyed-Yagoobi

Micro-scale two-phase flow heat transport involves specialized devices that are used to remove large amounts of heat from small surface areas. They operate by circulating a working fluid through a heated space which causes phase change from liquid to vapor. During this process, a significant amount of heat is transported away from the heat source. Micro-scale heat transport devices are compact in size and the heat transfer coefficient can be orders of magnitude higher than in macro-scale for similar operating conditions. Thus, it is of interest to develop such devices for cooling of next-generation electronics and other applications with extremely large heat fluxes. The heat transport device presented in this paper is driven by electrohydrodynamic (EHD) conduction pumping. In EHD conduction pumping, when an electric field is applied to a dielectric liquid, flow is induced. The pump is installed in a two-phase flow loop and has a circular 1 mm diameter cross section with electrode spacing on the order of 120 μm. It acts to circulate the fluid in the loop and has a simple yet robust, non-mechanical design. Results from two-phase flow experiments show that it is easily controlled and such electrically driven pumps can effectively be used in heat transport systems.


Author(s):  
Miad Yazdani ◽  
Abbas A. Alahyari ◽  
Hailing Wu ◽  
Thomas D. Radcliff

Two-phase flow distribution inside evaporator headers has been a challenging problem for a long time and having a robust predictive tool could substantially alleviate the costs associated with experimentation with different concepts and configurations. The use of a two-phase CFD model to predict flow distribution inside the header and at the discharge ports is demonstrated in this paper. The numerical domain is comprised of an inlet pipe and a distributor tube representing the header with a series of discharge ports. The flow distribution was initially verified using an air–water experiment, where the two-phase modeling approach, mesh requirements, and discretization schemes were defined. Next, the model was used to predict distribution of R134a in a typical heat exchanger distributor. The flow distribution across the discharge ports was provided to a discretized correlation-based heat exchanger model to predict the temperature and quality distribution along the length of the heat exchanger. The resultant temperature distribution is validated against IR imaging results for various operating conditions and header orientations.


Author(s):  
Njuki W. Mureithi ◽  
Soroush Shahriary ◽  
Michel J. Pettigrew

While steam generators operate in two-phase flow, the complex nature of the flow makes the prediction of flow-induced fluidelastic instability of steam generator tubes a challenging problem yet to be solved. In the work reported here, the quasi-static fluid force-field, which is the important unknown for two-phase flows, is measured in a rotated-triangle tube bundle for a series of void fractions and flow velocities. The forces are shown to be strongly dependent on void fraction, flow rates and relative tube positions. The fluid force field is then employed along with quasi-steady vibration stability models, originally developed for single phase flows, to model the two-phase flow problem and predict the critical instability velocity. The results are compared with dynamic vibration stability tests and are shown to be in good agreement. The present work uncovers some of the complexities of the fluid force field in two-phase flows. The database provides new potential to designers to estimate expected fluid dynamic loads under operating conditions. The force field data may also be applied in dynamic computations for tube wear simulations, replacing the simple Connors’ model which is currently used.


Author(s):  
Miad Yazdani ◽  
Hailing Wu ◽  
Abbas A. Alahyari ◽  
Thomas D. Radcliff

Two-phase flow distribution inside evaporator headers has been a challenging problem for a long time and having a robust predictive tool could substantially alleviate the costs associated with experimentation with different concepts and configurations. The use of a two-phase CFD model to predict flow distribution inside the header and at the discharge ports is demonstrated in this paper. The numerical domain is comprised of an inlet pipe and a distributor tube representing the header with a series of discharge ports. The flow distribution was initially verified using an air-water experiment, where the two-phase modeling approach, mesh requirements, and discretization schemes were defined. Next, the model was used to predict distribution of R134a in a typical heat exchanger distributor. The flow distribution across the discharge ports was provided to a discretized correlation-based heat exchanger model to predict the temperature and quality distribution along the length of the heat exchanger. The resultant temperature distribution is validated against IR imaging results for various operating conditions and header configurations.


Author(s):  
A. Martin ◽  
C. Raynaud ◽  
P. Pe´turaud ◽  
C. Heib ◽  
F. Dubois ◽  
...  

Hypothetical Small Break Loss Of Coolant Accident is identified as one of the most severe transients leading to a potential huge Pressurized Thermal Shock on the Reactor Pressure Vessel (RPV). This may result in two-phase flow configurations in the cold legs, according to the operating conditions, and to reliably assess the RPV wall integrity, advanced two-phase flow simulations are required. Related needs in development and/or validation of these advanced models are important, and the ongoing TOPFLOW-PTS experimental program was designed to provide a well documented data base to meet these needs. This paper focuses on pre-test NEPTUNE_CFD simulations of TOPFLOW-PTS experiments; these simulations were performed to (i) help in the definition of the test matrix and test procedure, and (ii) check the presence of the different key physical phenomena at the mock-up scale.


2021 ◽  
Vol 895 (1) ◽  
pp. 012002
Author(s):  
V S Alekseev ◽  
R S Seryi

Abstract Currently sluice washing devices are the most common in alluvial gold mining. Their use provides a sufficiently high performance, relatively low power consumption, and acceptable recovery of valuable components. The theoretical provisions of traditional hydraulics make it possible to determine all the main parameters of the movement of particles of rocks and gold in the pulp, however, in real operating conditions of the sluice box, their actual values will differ greatly from the calculated ones, especially if there are solid fractions in the pulp with a particle size of more than 20 mm. This is explained by significant fluctuations in the values of the surface, average and bottom velocities of the two-phase flow, vertical pulsation velocity in conditions of constrained movement of the different fractional composition of rocks. The article presents the results of experimental studies to identify the dependence of the distance traveled by an individual gold particle and host rocks in a two-phase flow through a sluice, the bottom of which is lined with trapping coatings, on the design and technological parameters of the flushing device. The mathematical model for determining this distance formed the basis of the Gold Enriching program. The program allows, in a wide range of initial data, to determine the zones of concentration of gold of a certain size at the sluice boxes.


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