• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
• /
• v.30 no.6
• /
• pp.585-592
• /
• 2019

In this study, a flashing boiling phenomenon of pressurized water jet was numerically studied and validated against an experimental data in the literatures. The volume of fluid (VOF) technique was used to consider two-phase behavior of water, while the homogeneous relaxation model (HRM) model was used to provide the velocity of phase change. During the flashing boiling through a nozzle, a mach disk was observed near nozzle exit because of pressure drop resulting from two-phase under-expansion. The flashing jet structure, local distributions of temperature/vapor volume fraction/velocity, and position of the mach disk were examined as nozzle inlet temperature changed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.50 no.5
• /
• pp.654-664
• /
• 2018

Self-pressurization analysis of the natural circulation integral nuclear reactor through a new dynamic model is studied. Unlike conventional pressurized water reactors, this reactor type controls the system pressure using saturated coolant water in the steam dome at the top of the pressure vessel. Self-pressurization model is developed based on conservation of mass, volume, and energy by predicting the condensation that occurs in the steam dome and the flashing inside the chimney using the partial differential equation. A simple but functional model is adopted for the steam generator. The obtained results indicate that the variable measurement is consistent with design data and that this new model is able to predict the dynamics of the reactor in different situations. It is revealed that flashing and condensation power are in direct relation with the stability of the system pressure, without which pressure convergence cannot be established.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.833-846
• /
• 1988

Two-phase flow heat transfer phenomena with flash evaporation inside a vertical tube were studied experimentally. Void fractions were measured using electrical probes, and the flow patterns were identified from the output voltage signal itself. The flow pattern as well as the beat transfer rates were changing along the axial distance from the tube inlet with the system pressure. As the pressure inside the tube decreases with fixed inlet temperature, the overall heat transfer coefficient through the tube wall and the boiling heat transfer coefficient inside the tube increase whereas the condensation heat transfer coefficient outside the tube decreases. The boiling heat transfer coefficient inside the tube measured by the experiments appeared to be somewhat larger than the value obtained from the Chen's correlation. Also, the flow patterns identified from present experiments are at the larger quality region of the low pattern map based on the transition criteria of Mishima and Ishii. This may be due to the non-equilibrium flashing phenomenon occurred at the nozzle exit and the tube inlet ; this also implies that the flow pattern of the two-phase flow depends strongly on the inlet conditions.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.142-148
• /
• 2013

Safety is a major concern in Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). Piping systems in NPPs are very complex and composed of many components such as tees, elbows, expanders and straight pipes. The high pressure and high temperature water flows inside piping components. As high speed water flows inside piping, the pipe wall thinning occurs in various reasons such as FAC (Flow Accelerated Corrosion), LDIE (Liquid Droplet Impingement Erosion) and Flashing. To inspect the wall thinning phenomenon and protect the piping from damages, piping components are checked by UT measurement in every overhaul. During every overhaul, approximately 200~300 components (40,000~60,000 UT data) are examined in NPPs. There are some methods from EPRI for evaluating wear rate of components. However, only few studies have been conducted to find out the raw data reliability for the wear rate evaluation. Securing the reliable raw data is the key factor for a reasonable evaluation. This paper suggests the reliability analysis method for the repeatedly measured data for wear rate evaluation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
• /
• v.25 no.1
• /
• pp.131-139
• /
• 2022

The exchange of goods over the sea is a situation in which the amount of trade between countries is gradually increasing. In order to maintain the optimal operating condition, the ship maintains stability and optimal operating conditions by inserting or withdrawing ballast water from the ballast tank according to the loading condition of cargo capacity is also increasing. Control valves play an important role in controlling fluid flow in these pipes. When the flow rate is controlled using a control valve, problems such as cavitation, flashing, and suffocating flow may occur due to high differential pressure, and in particular, damage to valves and pipes due to cavitation is a major problem. Therefore, in this study, the cavitation phenomenon is reduced by installing orifices at the front and rear ends of the high differential pressure control butterfly valve to reduce the sudden pressure drop at the limiting part of the butterfly valve step by step. The flow coefficient according to the shape of the orifice, the degree of cavitation occurrence, and the correlation were analyzed using a CFD(Cumputational Fluid Dynamics), and an optimal orifice design for reducing cavitation is derived.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.54 no.5
• /
• pp.1851-1859
• /
• 2022

Experimental research on flow characteristics of open natural circulation system was performed, to figure out the mechanism of the open natural circulation behaviors. The influence factors, such as the heating power, the inlet subcooled and the level of cooling tank on the flow characteristics of the system were examined. It was shown that within the scope of the experimental conditions, there are five flow types: single-phase stable flow, flash and geyser coexisting unstable flow, flash stable flow, flash unstable flow, and flash and boiling coexisting unstable flow. The geyser flow in flash and geyser coexisting unstable flow is different from classic geysers flow. The flow oscillation period and amplitude of the former are more regular, is a newly discovered flow pattern. By drawing the flow instability boundary diagram and sorting out the flow types, it is found that the two-phase unstable flow is mainly characterized by boiling and flash, which determine the behavior of open natural circulation respectively or jointly. Moreover, compared with full liquid level system, non-full liquid level system is more prone to boiling phenomenon, and the range of heat flux density and undercooling degree corresponding to unstable flow is larger.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
• /
• v.35 no.10
• /
• pp.1105-1110
• /
• 2011

Flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) is a well-known phenomenon that may occur in piping and components. Most nuclear power plants have carbon-steel-pipe wall-thinning management programs in place to control FAC. However, various other erosion mechanisms may also occur in carbon-steel piping. The most common forms of erosion encountered (cavitation, flashing, Liquid Droplet Impingement Erosion (LDIE), and Solid Particle Erosion (SPE)), have caused wall thinning, leaks, and ruptures, and have resulted in unplanned shutdowns in utilities. In particular, the damage caused by LDIE is difficult to predict, and there has been no effort to protect piping from erosive damage. This paper presents an evaluation method for LDIE. It also includes the calculation results from prediction models, a review of the experimental results, and a comparison between the UT data in the damaged components and the results of the calculations and experiments.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.56 no.10
• /
• pp.4077-4086
• /
• 2024

The natural circulation system has been widely studied for use in various applications because of its inherent advantage. However, it has a key weakness called flow instability that makes the system unstable. Through massive previous research, the mechanisms of flow instability were analyzed, but there was an ambiguous aspect related to the effect of experimental parameters on the phenomenon. Particularly, there has been no report on the heat transfer performance of the system when flow instability phenomena were present. In this study, thermal-hydraulic phenomena of a two-phase natural circulation system that functions as a passive containment cooling system (PCCS) was investigated according to experimental parameters, namely, the temperature boundary (120-158 ℃) and exit loss coefficient (0-34.5) under atmospheric pressure conditions. The experimental results showed five different flow types in the loop. The flow modes that occurred by the interaction between flashing and boiling were classified by referring to the mass flow rate, void fraction, and visualization data. The system was more unstable when the temperature boundary conditions increased, but it was more stable when the exit loss coefficient increased. These results have only been confirmed in our research. The reason for the results is that the flow conditions are located on the boundary between Density Wave Oscillation I and the stable flow region, and that boundary does not have clear criteria. In addition, comparing the heat transfer performance of a system by heat rate can confirm the effect of flow instability on the thermal performance of the passive cooling system. As a result, the high exit loss coefficient stabilizes the system better than the low case and has similar heat removal performance.