THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

RESEARCH ON THE EFFECTS OF LOCAL THROTTLING ON THERMAL-INDUCED TWO-PHASE FLOW INSTABILITIES IN THE TYPICAL COOLANT OPEN-CHANNEL SYSTEM IN THE NUCLEAR REACTOR CORE

ABSTRACT
Thermal-induced two-phase flow instabilities could badly slow the runtime performance of two-phase systems, such as boiling water reactor core, and even endanger the safe operation. Hence, many researchers have carried out numerous researches on flow instability characteristics, but few publications cover the effects of local throttling on two-phase flow instabilities in open-channel systems such as coolant rod bundle subchannel with spacer grids in the nuclear reactor core. This paper provides a numerical study on the effects of local throttling on two-phase flow instabilities in a simplified typical coolant open-channel system in a nuclear reactor core by using the NUSOL-SYS code. The effects of local throttling ratio, throttling position, and other throttling parameters on the stability of the boiling channel system were carried out. The results show that usually in uniformly distributed throttling conditions, the stability of the system and high throttling ratio are positively correlated. In fixed throttle ratio conditions, the stability of the system is positively correlated with the distance from the throttling region to the entrance and local void fraction. If throttling regions are uniformly arranged along the heating channel with a certain value, the number of throttle regions will enhance the instability of the system. Besides, this paper preliminarily proposed a criterion function f(n, RT, α) to study the complicated throttling effects on flow instability which could provide technical reference for the safe design and operation of two-phase systems, especially, the reactor core.
KEYWORDS
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2021-12-06
PAPER REVISED: 2022-07-15
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2022-07-20
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2022-10-29
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI2205095L
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2022, VOLUME 26, ISSUE Issue 5, PAGES [4095 - 4105]
REFERENCES
  1. Ledinegg, M., Instability of Flow during Natural and Forced Circulation, Die Waerme, 61 (1938), 8, pp. 891-898
  2. Kakac, S., Bon, B., A Review of Two-Phase Flow Dynamic Instabilities in Tube Boiling Systems, Inter-national Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 51 (2008), 3-4, pp. 399-433
  3. Boure, J. A., et al., Review of Two-Phase Flow Instability, Nuclear Engineering and Design, 25 (1973), 2, pp. 165-192
  4. Ruspini, L. C., et al., Two-Phase Flow Instabilities: A Review, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 71 (2014), Apr., pp. 521-548
  5. Veziroglu, T. N., Lee, S. S., Boiling Flow Instabilities in a Two Parallel Channel Upflow System, Final report, Miami Univ., Coral Gables, Fla., USA, 1969
  6. Kakac, S., et al., Transient Boiling Flow Instabilities in a Multi-Channel Upflow-System, Warme Und Stoffubertragung, 10 (1977), 3, pp. 175-188
  7. Kakac, S., et al., Sustained and Transient Boiling Flow Instabilities in a Cross-Connected Four-Parallel-Channel Upflow System, Revista Costarricense De Ciencias Medicas, 23 (1974), 1-2, pp. 33-43
  8. Whitfield, K., Roy, R. P., Boiling Flow through a Rod-Bundle Channel: Steady States and Dynamic In-stabilities, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 38 (1995), 8, pp. 1409-1425
  9. Dutta, G., Doshi, J. B., A Characteristics-Based Implicit Finite-Difference Scheme for the Analysis of Instability in Water Cooled Reactors, Nuclear Engineering & Technology, 40 (2008), 6, pp. 477-488.
  10. Shi, S., et al., Experimental Investigation of Natural Circulation Instability in a BWR-Type Small Modu-lar Reactor, Progress in Nuclear Energy, 85 (2015), Nov., pp. 96-107
  11. Lu, X., et al., Theoretical Investigations on Two-Phase Flow Instability in Parallel Channels under Axial Non-Uniform Heating, Annals of Nuclear Energy, 63 (2014), Jan., pp. 75-82
  12. Cheng, K., et al., Experimental Investigation on Flow Characteristics of Pressure Drop Oscillations in a Closed Natural Circulation Loop, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 122 (2018), July, pp. 1162-1171
  13. Wang, S., et al., RELAP5 Investigation on Subchannel Flow Instability, Kerntechnik, 81 (2016), 3, pp. 337-345
  14. Wang, S., et al., The Influence of Non-Uniform Heating on Two-Phase Flow Instability in Subchannel, Nuclear Engineering and Design, 345 (2019), 345, pp. 7-14
  15. Shan, J., Development of Multi-Scale High-Fidelity System Analysis Code NUSOL-SYS, CDNET-2018, Chengdu, China, 2018
  16. Ambrosini, W., Ferreri, J. C., Analysis of Basic Phenomena in Boiling Channel Instabilities with Differ-ent Flow Models and Numerical Schemes, Proceedings, 14th International Conference on Nuclear Engi-neering, Miami, Fla., USA, 2006, pp. 889-900
  17. Solberg, K. O., Resulats des Essais d' Instabilities sur la Boucle' Culine' et Comparisons avec Code de Calcul, Centre d'Etudes Nuclear, Grenoble, France, 1966
  18. Ishii, M., Study on flow instabilities in two-phase mixtures, Report No. ANL-76-23, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Ill., USA, 1976
  19. Long, J., et al., Numerical Simulation Investigation on Two-Phase Flow Instabilities in Two-Parallel-Channel, Nureth-18, Portland, Ore., USA, 2019
  20. Wang, S., et al., RELAP5 Investigation on Subchannel Flow Instability, Kerntechnik, 81 (2016), 3, pp. 337-345
  21. Colombo, M., et al., RELAP5/MOD3.3 Study on Density Wave Instabilities in Single Channel and Two Parallel Channels, Progress in Nuclear Energy, 56 (2012), Apr., pp. 15-23
  22. Papini, D., et al., Time-Domain Linear and Non-Linear Studies on Density Wave Oscillations, Chemical Engineering Science, 81 (2012), Oct., pp. 118-139

© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence