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Spargers are mutli-hole injection pipes used in Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) and Advanced Pressurized (AP) reactors to condense steam in large water pools. A steam injection induces heat, momentum and mass sources that depend on the steam injection conditions and can result in thermal stratification or mixing of the pool. Thermal stratification reduces the steam condensation capacity of the pool, increases the pool surface temperature and thus the containment pressure. Development of models with predictive capabilities requires the understanding of basic phenomena that govern the behavior of the complex multi-scale system. The goals of this work are (i) to analyze and interpret the experiments on steam injection into a pool through spargers performed in the large-scale facilities of PPOOLEX and PANDA, and (ii) to discuss possible modelling approaches for the observed phenomena. A scaling approach was developed to address the most important physical phenomena and regimes relevant to prototypic plant conditions. The focus of the tests was on the low steam mass flux and oscillatory bubble condensation regimes, which are expected during a long-term steam injection transient, e.g. in the case of a Station Black Out (SBO). Exploratory tests were also done for chugging and stable jet conditions. The results showed a similar behavior in PPOOLEX and PANDA in terms of jet induced by steam condensation, pool stratification, and development of hot layer and erosion of the cold one. A correlation using the Richardson number is proposed to model the erosion rate of the cold layer as a function of the pool dimensions and steam injection conditions.

Electrical impedance of a two-phase mixture is a function of void fraction and phase distribution. The difference in the specific electrical conductance and permittivity of the two phases is exploited to measure electrical impedance for obtaining void fraction and flow regime characteristics. An electrical impedance meter is constructed for the measurement of void fraction in microchannel two-phase flow. The experiments are conducted in air-water two-phase flow under adiabatic conditions. A transparent acrylic test section of hydraulic diameter 780 µm is used in the experimental investigation. The impedance void meter is calibrated against the void fraction calculated using analysis of images obtained with a high-speed camera. Based on these measurements, a methodology utilizing the statistical characteristics of the void fraction signals is employed for identification of microchannel flow regimes. A self-organizing neural network is used for classification of the flow regimes.

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