<p> Air bubble injection and subcooled flow boiling experiments have been performed to investigate the liquid flow field and bubble nucleation, growth, and departure, in part to contribute to the DOE Nuclear HUB project, Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL). The main objective was to obtain quantitative data and compartmentalize the many different interconnected aspects of the boiling process — from the channel geometry, to liquid and gas interactions, to underlying heat transfer mechanisms. </p><p> The air bubble injection experiments were performed in annular and rectangular geometries and yielded data on bubble formation and departure from a small hole on the inner tube surface, subsequent motion and deformation of the detached bubbles, and interactions with laminar or turbulent water flow. Instantaneous and ensemble- average liquid velocity profiles have been obtained using a Particle Image Velocimetry technique and a high speed video camera. Reynolds numbers for these works ranged from 1,300 to 7,700.</p><p> Boiling experiments have been performed with subcooled water at atmospheric pres- sure in the same annular channel geometry as the air injection experiments. A second flow loop with a slightly larger annular channel was constructed to perform further boiling experiments at elevated pressures up to 10 bar. High speed video and PIV measurements of turbulent velocity profiles in the presence of small vapor bubbles on the heated rod are presented. The liquid Reynolds number for this set of experiments ranged from 5,460 to 86,000. It was observed that as the vapor bubbles are very small compared to the injected air bubbles, further experiments were performed using a microscopic objective to obtain higher spatial resolution for velocity fields near the heated wall. Multiple correlations for the bubble liftoff diameter, liftoff time and bub- ble history number were evaluated against a number of experimental datasets from previous works, resulting in a new proposed correlations that account for fluid prop- erties that vary with pressure, heat flux, and variations in geometry.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:10159915 |
| Date | 23 November 2016 |
| Creators | Samaroo, Randy |
| Publisher | The City College of New York |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
Page generated in 0.0131 seconds