THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

SIMULATION STUDY ON TRANSPORT CHARACTERISTICS OF LEAKAGE GAS FROM THE CONDENSER OF POWER PLANT

ABSTRACT
Exploring the transport characteristics of leakage gas in the condenser can facilitate quicker identification of leak points when using Helium tracer gas method for detection. We construct a 3-D physical model of the condenser to simulate the Helium gas leakage process within the tube bundle. On the steam side, we adopt RNG k-ε, porous media, steam condensation, and convective diffusion models to describe steam and leakage gas-flow. On the waterside, we use the tube bundle thermal resistance model to describe the steam-water heat transfer. The research concludes with three key points. When the centripetal pressure gradient is insufficient, there will be leakage gas enrichment, resulting in flowing out in the form of diffusion. When there is no centripetal pressure gradient in the tube bundle region, it will extract only a small amount of upstream leakage gas along with steam through the flow. When reaching a stable level for leakage gas, the leakage intensity is proportional to the outlets’ flow rate but is independent of the transport form. The deviation of the mass-flow rate decreases with the mesh quantity increasing, which is less than 2% when the mesh quantity is over 638228. The deviation between simulated and actual values of the two parameters is less than 5%, which reveals the good agreement between numerical calculation and actual work conditions. These conclusions can assist employees and researchers in evaluating data on leak points and enhancing detection techniques.
KEYWORDS
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2023-07-24
PAPER REVISED: 2023-12-14
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2024-01-16
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2024-04-13
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI230724071B
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2024, VOLUME 28, ISSUE Issue 4, PAGES [2965 - 2975]
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© 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