Study on the Effect of One-Dimensional Natural Circulation on the Mixing Process of Two Component Gases

Abstract

This study is to investigate the effect of one-dimensional natural circulation on the mixing process of two component gases by evaluating the onset time of natural circulation through the apparatus under the stable density stratified fluid layer. The experimental apparatus consists of a reverse U-shaped vertical slot and a storage tank. The left side vertical slot consists of the heated wall and the cooled wall. The right side vertical slot consists of the two cooled walls. Temperature difference between the vertical walls was set to 50, 70, and 100 K. In this study, the combination of the two component gases is He/Ar and density ratio of each component is 1.4/10. The heavy gas was filled with the storage tank and light gas was filled with the reverse U-shaped vertical slot. Before the experiment starts, the localized natural convection was generated in the heated side vertical slot. After the experiment starts, the heavy gas will be transported to the slot by the molecular diffusion and natural convection. And then, natural circulation occurs abruptly through the reverse U-shaped passage. The mixing process of two component gases and the onset time of natural circulation in the vertical fluid layer were affected not only by the localized natural convection but also by the molecular diffusion. The wall and gas temperatures were measured by thermocouples and the velocity of natural convection was measured to evaluate the characteristics of the mixing process and the natural convection. These experimental results show that generation time of natural circulation was affected by molecular diffusion and localized natural convection. When the two components of gases have large density ratios and large Gr numbers, the mixing process of two components of gases was affected by more intensively molecular diffusion than localized natural convection when temperature difference was 50K. The mixing process of two component gas was affected by more intensively localized natural convection than molecular diffusion when temperature difference was 70 to 100K. However, two component gases were affected by more intensively molecular diffusion than localized natural convection at small density ratios and small Gr numbers.