• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.274-285
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• 2003

Film boiling heat transfer coefficients for a downward-facing hemispherical surface are measured from the quenching tests in DELTA (Downward-boiling Experimental Loop for Transient Analysis). Two test sections are made of copper to maintain Bi below 0.1. The outer diameters of the hemispheres are 120 mm and 294 mm, respectively. The thickness of both the test sections is 30 mm. The effect of diameter on film boiling heat transfer is quantified utilizing results obtained from the two test sections. The measured heat transfer coefficients for the test section with diameter 120 mm lie within the bounding values from the laminar film boiling analysis, while those for diameter 294 mm are found to be greater than the numerical results on account of the Helmholtz instability. There is little difference observed between the film boiling heat transfer coefficients measured from the two test sections. In addition, the higher thermal conductivity of copper results in the higher minimum heat flux in the tests. For the test section of diameter 120 mm, the Leidenfrost point is lower than that for the test section of diameter 294 mm. Destabilization of film boiling propagates radially inward for the 294 mm test section versus radially outward for the 120 mm Test Section.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.139-146
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• 2006

An experimental study was performed to evaluate the effects of surface coating and an enhanced insulation structure on the downward facing boiling process and the critical heat flux on the outer surface of a hemispherical vessel. Steady-state boiling tests were conducted in the Subscale Boundary Layer Boiling (SBLB) facility using an enhanced vessel/insulation design for the cases with and without vessel coatings. Based on the boiling data, CHF correlations were obtained for both plain and coated vessels. It was found that the nucleate boiling rates and the local CHF limits for the case with micro-porous layer coating were consistently higher than those values for a plain vessel at the same angular location. The enhancement in the local CHF limits and nucleate boiling rates was mainly due to the micro-porous layer coating that increased the local liquid supply rate toward the vaporization sites on the vessel surface. For the case with thermal insulation, the local CHF limit tended to increase from the bottom center at first, then decrease toward the minimum gap location, and finally increase toward the equator. This non-monotonic behavior, which differed significantly from the case without thermal insulation, was evidently due to the local variation of the two-phase motions in the annular channel between the test vessel and the insulation structure.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.1
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• pp.124-133
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• 2017

In-vessel retention by passive external reactor vessel cooling under severe accident conditions is a viable approach for retention of radioactive core melt within the reactor vessel. In this study, a new and versatile coating technique known as "cold spray" that can readily be applied to operating and advanced reactors was developed to form a microporous coating on the outer surface of a simulated reactor lower head. Quenching experiments were performed under simulated in-vessel retention by passive external reactor vessel cooling conditions using test vessels with and without cold spray coatings. Quantitative measurements show that for all angular locations on the vessel outer surface, the local critical heat flux (CHF) values for the coated vessel were consistently higher than the corresponding CHF values for the bare vessel. However, it was also observed for both coated and uncoated surfaces that the local rate of boiling and local CHF limit vary appreciably along the outer surface of the test vessel. Nonetheless, results of this intriguing study clearly show that the use of cold spray coatings could enhance the local CHF limit for downward-facing boiling by > 88%.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.9
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• pp.2839-2846
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• 2021

In this study, experiments of downward-facing flow boiling were conducted to investigate material effects on CHF. Experiments were conducted using aluminum, copper, and carbon steel. It was found that different materials had different CHFs. Aluminum has the biggest CHF while copper has the lowest CHF for each mass flux. After experiment, surface wettability increased and surface became rougher, which was probably due to the oxidation process during nucleate boiling. The CHF difference is likely to be related to the surface wettability, roughness and thermal effusivity, which influences the bubble behavior and in turn affects CHF. Further studies are needed to determine which factor is dominant.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.185-185
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• 2002

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.10a
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• pp.412-413
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• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2004.10a
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• pp.239-240
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• 2004

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.169.1-169
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• 2001

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.607-608
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• 2005

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.915-924
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• 2016

After a severe accident to the nuclear reactor, the in-vessel retention strategy is a key way to prevent the leakage of radioactive material. Nanofluid is a steady suspension used to improve heat-transfer characteristics of working fluids, formed by adding solid particles with diameters below 100nm to the base fluids, and its thermal physical properties and heat-transfer characteristics are much different from the conventional working fluids. Thus, nanofluids with appropriate nanoparticle type and volume concentration can enhance the heat-transfer process. In this study, the moving particle semi-implicit method-meshless advection using flow-directional local grid method is used to simulate the bubble growth, departure, and sliding on the downward-facing heating surface in pure water and nanofluid (1.0 vol.% $Al_2O_3/H_2O$) flow boiling processes; additionally, the bubble critical departure angle and sliding characteristics and their influence are also investigated. The results indicate that the bubble in nanofluid departs from the heating surface more easily and the critical departure inclined angle of nanofluid is greater than that of pure water. In addition, the influence of nanofluid on bubble sliding is not significant compared with pure water.