A Study on the Correlations Development for Film Boiling Heat Transfer on Spheres

Film boiling is the heat transfer mechanism that can occurs when large temperature differences exist between a cold liquid and hot material. In the nuclear reactor safety analysis, film boiling has become an important issue in recent years. During severe accident, hot molten corium fall into relatively cool water, and fragment into spheres or sphere-like particles. If the steam explosion is triggered, the thermal energy of corium is converted into the mechanical energy that can threaten the integrity of reactor vessel or reactor cavity. One of the important concerns in the heat transfer analysis during pre-mixing stage is the film boiling heat transfer between the corium and water/steam two-phase flow. Until now, considerable works on film boiling heat been performed. However, there is no available correlation adequate for severe accident analysis. In this study, boiling heat transfer correlations have been developed, and their applicable ranges heat been enlarged and their prediction accuracy has been enhanced.