No abstract

T-pipe designs have been widely used in the industry. Among them, mixing of hot and cold water is a common application. In the mixing process, cold and hot fluids are respectively injected through main and branch pipes, and are mixed in the downstream area of T-tube. High temperature hot water flows through the main pipe for a long time; hence, the pipe wall is at high temperatures. The fluid injected into the branch pipe is a cooling fluid. After mixing, the wall of the main pipe is under high thermal fluctuations causing strong thermal stresses, which will eventually lead to pipe damage and water loss. Through flow rate adjustments of the branch and main pipes, when the branch/main velocity ratio was greater than 7.8, showing that cold water hit the bottom of the main pipe and created a reverse flow. This reverse flow created large thermal stresses on the wall. Hence, the branch/main velocity ratio and the hot-water-mixing phenomenon are the focus of this study.

No abstract

Boiling heat transfer has a high heat removal capability in convective cooling. However, the heat removal capability of downward-facing boiling is significantly worse than that of upward-facing cases because of the confined buoyancy effect. This study was inspired by the conception of external reactor vessel cooling (ERVC) condition relevant to the in-vessel retention (IVR) design of Westinghouse AP1000 plant. In the present study, a small-scale test facility had been established to investigate the local phenomena of boiling heat transfer under a downward-facing horizontal heated surface with impinging coolant flow. In this study, the surface temperature, heat flux information and several specific scenes of bubbles are taken down throughout the boiling processes for detailed investigation. It is observed that bubbles are confined under the downward-facing heated surface, which causes a worse heat transfer rate and a lower critical heat flux (CHF) limit than upward-facing boiling. Nevertheless, the impinging coolant flow is found to disturb the thermal boundary layer formed by the heated surface, so the CHF increases with an increase of coolant flow rate. In addition, during nucleate boiling, it is discovered that the growth, combination and dissipation of bubbles induce turbulent wakes and therefore enhance the heat transfer capability.

No abstract