Critical Heat Flux Experiments and Correlation in a Long, Sodium-Heated Tube

Abstract

Critical heat flux (CHF) experiments were performed in the Steam Generator Test Facility (SGTF) at Argonne National Laboratory for application to liquid metal fast breeder reactor steam generators. The test section consisted of a single, straight, vertical, full-scale LMFBR steam generator tube with force-circulated water boiling upwards inside the tube heated by sodium flowing countercurrent in a surrounding annulus. The test section tube parameters were as follows: 10.1 mm i.d., 15.9 mm o.d., material = 2 1/4 Cr–1 Mo steel, and 13.1 m heated length. Experiments were performed in the water pressure range of 7.0 to 15.3 MPa and the water mass flux range of 720 to 3200 kg/m2˙s. The data exhibited two trends: heat flux independent and heat flux dependent. Empirical correlation equations were developed from over 400 CHF tests performed in the SGTF. The data and correlation equations were compared to the results of other CHF investigations.

Thermally Developing Flow in an Annulus with a Boiling Boundary

“…(5) for the heat flux rather than Eq. (6). As in the simplest form of the gradient analysis, a sodium heat transfer coefficient taken from Ref.…”

“…A form of this method was used in the analysis of experimental data presented in Ref. 6. Equation (1) was solved numerically with initial condition, Eq.…”

“…6 included over 400 individual steady-state tests covering a large range of parameters. In view of the various assumptions involved with the four analyses, it was anticipated that the largest differences among them would occur in tests with large axial gradients in temperature and heat flux.…”

“…Smaller-scale sodiumheated experiments in the 1 MW range have been performed by Westinghouse, 3 ' 4 General Electric 5 and Argonne National Laboratory. 6 Experiments outside of the U.S. have also ranged in size up to about 50 MW inputs. A recent article 7 summarizes ten years of large-scale sodium-heated steam generator testing and serves as an example of this work.…”

Heat Transfer to Dispersed Swirl Flow of High-Pressure Water With Low Wall Superheat

“…Several models for this calculation were treated in detail in [21]. The most complete model (the developing method) was used in this study as described [21,22]. (The results [21] indicate that simpler models also will give good accuracy in the post-CHF region.)…”