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Subcooled flow boiling contains complex bubble behaviors and interactions. Accurate prediction and analysis of the subcooled flow boiling are of great significance for the safe operation and economy of the nuclear reactors. The bubble-layer-based model is a new theoretical model in predicting the flow boiling, which divides the flow filed into two regions in the radial direction, which are the bubble layer region and the core region. Bubble behaviors in each region, mass and energy exchanges between different regions, and variations of parameters in the axial direction are analyzed and reflected through a set of two-dimensional steady-state conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy. Therefore, this model can provide more detailed information of the flow field than current one-dimensional models. However, this bubble-layer-based model for the subcooled flow boiling has only been verified in conventional tubes. When the channel type and sizes change, the accuracy of the model is still uncertain. Considering that rectangular channels are widely encountered in multiphase flow equipment, this paper aims to further extend this model to the prediction of the subcooled flow boiling in rectangular channels. Firstly, several flow boiling experiments in both conventional rectangular channels and narrow rectangular channels were selected. The working conditions are 0.1-8 MPa for pressure, 211-1 700 kW/m2 for heat flux, 240-2 200 kg/(m2·s) for mass flux, 4.42×103-3.72×105 for liquid Reynold number and 0.83-1.76 for Prandtl number. Then, variations of void fraction obtained by this model were compared with these experimental data. The results show that this bubble-layer-based model shows high accuracy when it is applied to both conventional rectangular channels and narrow rectangular channels, which reflects that the channel size and shapes have limited impact on the accuracy of this model. In addition, to further verify the accuracy of this model, one of the existing models (Cai model) in predicting the void fraction in subcooled flow boiling was also selected for comparison. The results show that the bubble-layer-based model shows higher accuracy than Cai model, with the relative error of 32.7% and 52.6% respectively. Finally, this model was applied to the analysis of the flow boiling in one narrow rectangular channel. It describes the variations of several two-phase flow parameters, such as the void fraction, pressure, velocity and temperature. These results not only provide a better understanding of the mechanism of subcooled flow boiling, but also provide basic data for the thermal physical coupling analysis of the rectangular fuel elements in nuclear reactors.

Flow boiling is widely encountered in many industrial fields such as the steam generator in nuclear reactors. Nowadays, a lot of studies are focused on the bubble dynamics parameters due to the close relationship between the heat transfer and bubble behaviors. Bubble departure frequency is one of the important bubble dynamic parameters which reflects the bubble cycle in time and thus directly influences the bubble evaporation heat. In order to improve the predicting accuracy of bubble departure frequency and thus improve the accuracy of heat transfer calculation under flow boiling, the affecting factors of bubble departure frequency firstly through 13 groups of flow boiling independent experiments of water (506 experimental data points) were analyzed in this paper. It is found that bubble departure frequency decreases with the increasing of liquid subcooling, while it increases with the increasing of channel size, mass flux, wall superheating and pressure in which the effect of channel size is often ignored by many researchers. Then the accuracy of five existing prediction models was evaluated. The results show that none of them have high prediction accuracy in all experimental data points. Cole model and Zuber model both perform badly and have the absolute errors of 163.2% and 218.2% respectively and the relative errors of 134.2% and 205.1% respectively, because they only consider the effect of physical properties and thus they are more suitable for pool boiling. Brooks model and Basu model both overestimate the results with the absolute errors of 280.2% and 102.1% respectively and the relative errors of 2352% and 37.1% respectively. The reason lies in that these two models are developed through their own experiment data and thus have limited application ranges. Chen model performs relatively better with the absolute error of 64.8%, but it largely underestimates the results with the relative error of -52.3% for the reason that this model is developed based on the pool boiling experiments of methane and ignored the effects of mass flux and liquid subcooling. Besides, the results show that most predicting models perform badly when the channel size is small which confirm the significant influence of channel size. Therefore, in this paper, a new prediction model was developed with higher predicting accuracy through dimensionless analysis which consideres the effects of channel size, physical properties, wall superheating and mass flux. This new model has the mean absolute error of 39.2% and mean relative error of -14.3% with the application ranges of bubble Reynold number 28-2 303, Bond number 1-9.272 and Jakob number 0.004-0.049.

In the two-phase flow system, the flow pattern affects the frictional resistance and heat transfer characteristics of the system. Accurate identification of different flow patterns is of great significance to the calculation of twophase flow. For the gasliquid flow in narrow channels, especially the flow pattern and flow pattern transition criterion in rectangular narrow channels, some researchers have done some experimental studies. For the study of flow pattern in narrow rectangular channels, the classification of flow patterns is basically consistent with that in conventional rectangular channels, including bubbly flow, slug flow, churn flow and annular flow. However, the performance of existing flow pattern transition criteria for twophase flow in narrow rectangular channels still needs further and comprehensive assessments. In this paper, a parameter representing the success rate of boundary separation of bubblyslug flow transition was introduced to quantitatively evaluate the performances of five typical bubbly-slug flow transition criteria and experimental data reported by 10 previous researchers, covering channel sizes ranging from 0.6 mm to 30 mm. Results show that the success rate of boundary separation of the Jones & Zuber criterion, Taitel criterion, MishimaIshii criterion and Xu criterion in predicting the experimental data varies from 61.86% to 98.10%. The variation mainly attributes to the assumption of constant critical void fraction in these criterions, since analyzing shows that the critical void fraction of flow pattern transition is related to the channel geometry. Although the HibikiMishima criterion considers the effect of channel size on the critical void fraction, the bubbly diameter (Db) is also needed in this model, which is difficult to obtain. The influence of channel size on the flow transition was quantitatively analyzed based on a dimensionless parameter of confinement number (Co). Finally, the flow pattern transition function (f(k)) was correlated with Co, and a new flow pattern transition criterion of bubbly-slug flows in narrow channel considering the physical properties of working fluid and the size of flow channel with higher accuracy and wider application range was established, which predicts the experimental data with success rates of boundary separation of 83.78% to 98.10% within the range of 0.486 57≤Co≤1.471 04, 0.016 m/s≤jg≤6.758 m/s, and 0.058 m/s≤jf≤5.059 m/s. The conclusions of this paper can provide references for the design and optimization of reactor heat exchanger components and compact heat exchangers.

Control rod hydraulic drive system (CRHDS) is the key power control equipment of 200 MW Nuclear Heating Reactor (NHR-200), and the capacitance rod position measurement sensor (CRPMS) is the key measurement equipment of CRHDS. For the measurement error caused by the eccentricity of the measuring rod, a new measurement method which can separate the capacitance variation caused by the stepping and eccentricity of the measuring rod was proposed (eccentricity-stepping separation method). Based on this method, a design of four-helix electrodes CRPMS was proposed. For the sensor, the theoretical model was established by finite element method, and the static characteristic experiment was carried out. The calculation results of the theoretical model are in good agreement with the experimental results. Based on the theoretical model, the function between capacitance values and rod positions was established, and the measurement error of the sensor was systematically analyzed. The structure optimization of the sensor was conducted. The results show that for the four-helix electrodes CRPMS with eccentricity-stepping separation method, the maximum measurement error is -3.11 mm under the calculation conditions, which can meet the requirements of rod position measurement without losing step. The results provide guidance for the improvement of CRPMS.

Steam-water separation device has a very important role in various fields such as nuclear power, chemical industry, and the environment field. Among them, accurate and efficient simulation of gas-liquid two-phase flow is of great importance for the design of nuclear power steam generators, in which the liquid droplets generated mainly consist of small-sized film droplet and larger-sized jet droplet. The current experimental study is relatively macroscopic and it is difficult to obtain detailed information about the droplet motion, so numerical simulation method is needed to study the mechanism of droplet motion, the current two-phase flow simulation method mainly includes Euler-Euler method and Euler-Lagrange method, and the simulation accuracy of Euler-Euler method is relatively low. Although the Euler-Lagrange method has higher accuracy, its computational complexity increases significantly with the number of particles, and it is usually difficult to be used for large-scale droplet simulation. In combination with the Euler-Lagrange model of droplet motion, the Euler grid-approximation model describing the motion of small-sized film droplets has been developed, which can reduce the computational effort while maintaining accuracy. The model approximates the real particle motion as the motion of particles along the grid nodes, while the trajectory lines of droplets are modeled by the connecting lines between the nodes. In this paper, the physical mechanism explanation and mathematical expression of the Euler grid approximation model for large size jet droplet were given, and different densities were defined for the mesh nodes completely covered by the droplet and for the mesh node not completely covered by the edge of the droplet. The model was applied to the calculation of the lower gravity space of the actual AP1000 steam generator, and the velocity and density field of droplet including suspended droplet, droplet smaller than the suspended size and droplet larger than the suspended size under the steam flow field were obtained, where the jet droplet smaller than the critical size will move out of the calculation domain with force of the flow field, the jet droplet larger than the critical size will fall back to the free surface, and the droplet of the critical size will remain suspended at a certain location. The region with higher density is also obtained as the possible collision point. The model can be used to calculate the droplet separation efficiency of vapor separation device such as gravity separation space and guide the optimization design of separation device.

Jumping-droplet condensation pushes the boundary of condensation heat transfer by enabling microdroplet shedding via coalescence-induced droplet jumping. The latter is empowered by surface-to-kinetic energy conversion. Regardless of extensive studies of droplet jumping on ideally non-wetting surfaces, a quantitative description of droplet jumping from realistic surfaces remains a challenge due to limited insight into the complex energy conversion process that is strongly coupled with droplet–droplet and droplet–substrate interactions. Here, we use a three-dimensional (3D) pseudopotential multiphase multiple-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann method (MRT-LBM) to simulate binary-droplet coalescence with various droplet sizes and surface wettability. Then, we developed a comprehensive and unified energy conversion model, derived by rigorously analyzing the dynamic droplet–surface interaction and quantifying the roles of droplet size scale, droplet size mismatch, and surface wettability. Our simulations capture coalescence and jumping dynamics of arbitrary-sized droplets on surfaces having various wettability and reveal the effect of droplet size and surface wettability. Validated by experiments, the energy model is then used to define the jumping/non-jumping boundaries for coalescing droplets on nanostructured surfaces. Our work demonstrates the key physics and a universal criterion governing self-propelled droplet shedding, key to the design of surfaces for enhanced condensation heat transfer, anti-frosting/icing, self-cleaning, and water/energy harvesting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bubble lift-off diameter is characterized as the size of a bubble rising from a wall, which is vital in the boundary condition of heat transfer model and interfacial area transport equation. In this paper, mechanistic force analysis was conducted to explore a predictive model for bubble lift-off diameter in a vertical channel of subcooled boiling flow. Specifically, the component of growth force normal to the wall and the shear lift force lead to the lift-off of a bubble on the vertical surface. Through force analysis, we found that bubble lift-off diameter is arranged to be related to wall superheat, latent heat, liquid velocity, fluid properties, bulk liquid subcooling, etc. To account for the contribution of the influencing factors, the dimensionless bubble lift-off diameter was correlated with dimensionless parameters, including the Prandtl number, the Reynolds number, the Jacob number, and dimensionless subcooling. The proposed correlation was assessed according to experimental data and the predictions showed good agreement with the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]