• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.624-635
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• 2024

In two-fluid simulations of flow boiling, the modeling of the mean bubble diameter is a key parameter in the closure relations governing the intefacial transfer of mass, momentum, and energy. Monodispersed approach proved to be insufficient to describe the significant variation in bubble size during flow boiling in a heated pipe. A population balance model (PBM) has been employed to address these shortcomings. During nucleate boiling, vapor bubbles of a certain size are formed on the heated wall, detach and migrate into the bulk flow. These bubbles then grow, shrink or disintegrate by evaporation, condensation, breakage and aggregation. In this study, a parametric analysis of the PBM aggregation and breakage models has been performed to investigate their effect on the radial distribution of the mean bubble diameter and vapor volume fraction. The simulation results are compared with the DEBORA experiments (Garnier et al., 2001). In addition, the influence of PBM parameters on the local distribution of individual bubble size groups was also studied. The results have shown that the modeling of aggregation process has the largest influence on the results and is mainly dictated by the collisions due to flow turbulence.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.69-75
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• 2016

Bubble size is a key parameter for an accurate prediction of bubble behaviours in the multi-dimensional two-phase flow. In the current STAR CCM+ CFD code, a mechanistic bubble size model $S{\gamma}$ is available for the prediction of bubble size in the flow channel. As another model, Yun model is developed based on DEBORA that is subcooled boiling data in high pressure. In this study, numerical simulation for the gas-liquid two-phase flow was conducted to validate and confirm the performance of $S{\gamma}$ model and Yun model, using the commercial CFD code STAR CCM+ ver. 10.02. For this, local bubble models was evaluated against the air-water data from DEDALE experiments (1995) and Hibiki et al. (2001) in the vertical pipe. All numerical results of $S{\gamma}$ model predicted reasonably the two-phase flow parameters and Yun model is needed to be improved for the prediction of air-water flow under low pressure condition.