Atomic Energy, Vol. 79, No.

I, 1995

ARTICLES
HEAT-TRANSFER CRISIS AT LOW PRESSURE AND FLOW RATE

V. V. Sergeev, A. M. Smirnov, #. F. Gal'chenko,

and D. A. Krylov UDC 536.248.2

Regimes with low pressure and low mass flow velocity are encountered in accidents with a~targe coolant leak. Such
regimes can determine the safety of reactors. To verify and certify the computational codes employed for substantiating the
safety of a nuclear power plant, it is necessary to have experimental data on critical heat fluxes at low pressure and flow
rate. However, this range of parameters has not been adequately studied, the computational recommendations are not
reliable enough and require experimental justification [1, 2], and there are virtually no data on the critical heat fluxes for
fuel assemblies at pressures below 1 MPa and mass velocity less than 500 kg/(m2.sec). To fill this lacuna, the crisis of
boil.ing with upward motion of water in a circular pipe and a 19-rod bundle was investigated experimentally.
In the pipe experiments a method for performing the experiments was worked out, the effect of the stand condi-
tions was studied, and experimental data were obtained in a wide range of parameters of the regime. The working section
consisted of a 13 x 1 mm and 3 m long stainless steel pipe, heated by direct passage of an ac current and equipped with
20 chromel-alumel thermocouples, soldered every 150 mm to its outer surface. In performing the experiments the pressure
was measured directly on the ends of the heated part of the working section and also 180 IILm downstream from the heated
end. In some of the experiments the diameter of the flow section following the working section of the segment of the
hydraulic channel was enlarged from 10 to 32 nan in order to decrease its resistance, and a Du 20 spring ball valve,
located 300 mm from the exit end of the working section, was used to dump into the atmosphere part of the steam
generated in the working section. The experiments were performed with a pressure of 0.1-1.1 MPa at the exit, a mass flow
rate of 25-500 kg/(m2"sec), a water temperature of 9-50~ at the entrance, and intake throttling of up to 5 MPa.
The objective of the experiments on the 19-rod bundle of the W E R geometry was to obtain data to check the
computational relations and to justify the accident regimes in a nuclear power plant with a W t ~ R reactor. The fuel
assembly consisted of an electrically heated 9-rod bundle consisting of 9.1 mm in diameter and 3 m long stainless steel
pipes with a heat-release distribution in the form of two identical steps of the same length. The heat-flux density at the
entrance step was 1.74 times higher than at the exit step. The assembly was placed in a hexagonal channel with an "under
the key" dimension of 57.3 mm. Parts of the VVI~R spacing arrays consisting of 19 cells were used to separate the pipes
in the triangular packing. The arrays were placed 300 nm from one another. Chromel-alumel thermocouples, soldered to
the inner surface of the pipes near the exit ends of each heat-release step, were used to monitor the temperature. The
experiments were performed with pressures of 0.2-0.6 MPa at the exit from the assembly, mass flow rates of 50-300
kg/(m2.sec), a water temperature of 60~ at the entrance, and intake throttling of up to 4 MPa.
The procedure in performing the experiments on the pipe and the rod bundle consisted of gradually increasing by
steps the power supplied to the working section with fixed flow rate and temperature of the water at the entrance. In the
experiments with the rod bundle the pressure at the exit from the working section was maintained constant, and in the
experiments with the pipe the pressure was varied in accordance with the degree to which the relief valve was opened and
in accordance with the steam production in the working section. The moment at which a crisis of heat transfer occurred
was recorded according to the first increase in the temperature of the heat-emitting surface not proportional to the increase
in the power. A measurement-computational system was used to collect and record the experimentally measured parame-
ters.
The two main difficulties which must be overcome in the experimental study of the heat-transfer crisis at low
pressure - ensuring hydraulic stability and maintaining the required pressure at the exit from the working section - are
due to the large difference in the liquid and steam phases.

State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation - Physics and Power Engineering Institute. Translated from
Atomnaya I~nergiya, Vol. 79, No. 1, pp. 3-7, July, 1995. Original articles submitted April 28, 1995.

1063-4258/95/7901-0409512.50 9 Plenum Publishing Corporation 409

 p, MPa.

o,8 0
0
o
8
o
0,~ - d:) z~

O' I I I
700 300 ,.TOO
.,0w, kg/(m2.sec)
Fig. 1. Change in the pressure at the exit end of the
working section with increasing flow rate: o, a, /k -
valve closed, open, and partially open, respectively.

'~ ~
8 .o
O

0 1 I I
100 Joo S08
p w, kg/(m2'sec)

Fig. 2. Critical heat flux versus the flow rate

(the symbols are the same as in Fig. 1).

The effect of the throttling at the intake and the hydraulic resistance of the exit channel on the hydraulic stability
of the loop and the critical heat fluxes were studied. It was shown that in the absence of throttling of the flow, oscillations
of the flow rate arise directly in front of the entrance into the working section into the loop (in regimes with steam
generation), and these oscillations ultimately lead to the heat-transfer crisis. The presence of throttling at the input make.s
it possible to increase the "rigidity" of the loop and to avoid hydraulic instability. In this case the critical heat fluxes grow
as the mass flow rate grows, and their value are much higher than the values obtained under "soft" stand conditions. When
the hydraulic resistance of the exit channel increases, the pressure at the exit from the working section increases. This, on
the one hand, decreases the hydraulic stability of the loop-and, on the other (under hydraulically-stable conditions),
increases the critical heat fluxes.
The change in the pressure at the exit from the working section with an increase of the mass flow velocity for
hydraulically stable regimes with a heat-transfer crisis is displayed in Fig. 1. The lower and upper series of points corre-
spond to two extreme conditions of the relief valve: open and closed, respectively. The remaining points correspond to an
intermediate degree of opening of the valve. As the resistance of the exit channel increases, the degree of hydraulic
stability of the loop decreases. When the valve is opened, even in the presence of substantial throttling at the entrance,
small but appreciable oscillations of the flow rate, pressure difference, and pressure at the exit of the working section
(scatter of the points in Fig. 1), accompanied by acoustic and vibrational phenomena, were observed.

410
 Xcr 1"173

1,2 - o
I"1
I - {:]

d)

I
O,# ZOO ~.00 500
/0 W, kg/(m2.sec)
Fig. 3. Critical steam content versus the mass f l o w rate
(the symbols are the same as in Fig. 1).

50 "5

0 I I I I
lOO 300 500
,aw, kg/(m:.sec)
Fig. 4. Effect of the regime parameters on the reduced
steam velocity in the section of heat-transfer crisis (the
symbols are the same as in Fig. 1).

The experimental data on the critical heat fluxes for hydraulically stable regimes are presented in Fig. 2, whence
one can see that at low (up to 0.4 MPa) pressure the data obtained with the relief valve opened to different degrees are
almost identical. As the pressure increases, the critical heat fluxes increase. The effect of underheating of the water at the
entrance is apparently small and is concealed by the error in the experimental points; this agrees with the results obtained
by other investigators [3, 4].
Analysis of Fig. 3 shows that with a mass flow rate of 100-500 kg/(m2.sec) the critical steam content drops
monotonically with increasing flow rate, the values of Xcr increasing with the pressure. At lower flow rates the dependence
of the critical steam content on the mass velocity is not so obvious, and the data themselves are less representative. Values
of the steam content exceeding 1 are apparently due to the fact that the liquid returns into the working section from the
part of the loop lying above it.
Detailed analysis of the data obtained and the existing data shows that in hydraulically stable regimes the heat-
transfer crisis is associated mainly with additional vaporization of the liquid film near the walls and in the case of a very
low flow rate it is also associated with the phenomenon of "choking" under conditions of upstream motion of the steam
and liquid flowing down from the parts of the loop lying higher than the working section.
Helpful information for understanding the mechanism of the heat-transfer crisis at low pressure can be extracted
from the character of the change in the reduced velocity of the steam in the critical section as a function of the regime
parameters a~d the experimental conditions (Fig. 4). The reduced velocity of the steam with fixed opening of the relief
valve at first grows rapidly with increasing mass velocity, reaches a maximum in the region 100-200 kg/(m2"sec), and

411
 III
6

x oo
2

I I ( I
50 150 250 $50
.p w, kg/(m2'see)

Fig. 5. Critical heat flux density as a function of the mass

velocity with pressures of 0.1 ( x ) , 0.2 (A, A), 0.4 (e,
o), 0.6 (11) for a pipe (filled symbols) and bundle (open
symbols).

Xcr X

1,Z-

1-
O
x
o
r-I 9
0,8- X
A 9 9

0,6- t-I
O

8
I f I
0,90 700 ZOO t00
fl W, kg/(m2'see)
Fig. 6. Critical steam content versus the mass velocity
(the symbols are the same as in Fig. 5).

then either stabilizes or drops slowly. As the pressure increases, the reduced velocity of the steam decreases. The maxi-
mum values of the reduced steam velocity 100-200 rn/sec are close to the velocity of sound in a two-phase flow under the
conditions considered [5]. This character of the change in the reduced velocity of the steam can be explained as follows.
When the relief valve is opened, the increase in the reduced velocity of the steam in the section of heat-transfer crisis with
increasing flow rate of the water and, correspondingly, steam production in the working section occurs until the flow in the
exit opening of the valve reaches the velocity of sound, i.e. until the valve is "locked." When the flow rate increases
further (in the presence of an adequate head from the pumps), the pressure at the exit end of the working section increases,
and this in turn gives rise to an increase in the flux density and a decrease of the steam content and reduced velocity of the
steam. The maximum value of the latter quantity is determined by, among other things, the flow section of the valve with
different degree of opening of the valve: the larger the flow section of the valve (steam flow rate), the greater the reduced
velocity of the steam at the exit and of the working section. Ira the case when the flow in the working section reaches the
velocity of sound, the working section becomes "blocked," which can be judged from the jump in the density near the exit
end of the working section. Direct measurements of the static pressure near the exit from the working section confirmed
this assumption: the pressure drop on the 180 mm long section of the pipe, located directly behind the working section,
with the relief valve closed in crisis regimes was of the same order of magnitude and even greater than the pressure drop
on the entire working section.

412
 7.0

16-

~ 12 -
O

I
O

~Qt3 I I I
EO 150 250 350
p ~., kg/(mZ.sec)
Fig. 7. Comparison of the critical heat flux density com-
puted (filled symbols) with the RELAP5/mod3 code for a
bundle with the experimental critical heat flux density
(open symbols) at pressures of 0.2 ( , , A), 0.4 (e, o),
0.6 (11, r~).

The experiments on the pipe bundle were performed taking into account the results of the analysis of methodologi-
cal questions for a round pipe. For this pipe, all data on the crisis of heat transfer were obtained in hydraulically stable
regimes; this was achieved by substantial (up to 4 MPa) throttling of the flow at the entrance into the working column.
However, the problem of maintaining a prescribed pressure at the exit from the column was not completely solved, since
it required substantial modifications to the circulation loop. For this reason, we were not able to obtain experimental data
on the crisis of boiling at a pressure of 0.2 MPa for a mass flow rate of 200 kg/(m2.sec) and higher, as well as with a
pressure of 0.1 MPa (which was planned by the program of experiments).
The experiments showed that in all cases the crisis of heat transfer arose at the exit end of the fuel assembly and,
as a rule, on the central pipe. The critical heat flux increased (Fig. 5) and the critical steam content decreased (Fig. 6) with
increasing mass velocity. Comparing the experimental data shows that under identical conditions the critical fluxes and the
critical steam content for the bundle of rods are lower than the analogous data for the pipe, and this difference increases
with the mass velocity. The lower values of the critical steam content for the pipe bundle are caused by the fact that the
ceils are not equivalent thermohydraulically, as is confirmed by the fact that a heat-transfer crisis appears mainly on the
central rod. This also explains, in part, the lower, than in the case of the pipe, critical heat fluxes. However, the main
reason for the latter lies in the nonuniform vertical distribution of the heat load. If the fact that the crisis of heat transfer
always arose at the exit end of the bundle, where the heat flux was much lower, is taken into account and the average
(over the length) specific heat loads under critical conditions (the critical power of a bundle, referred to the area of the
heat-releasing surface) are compared with the critical heat fluxes for a pipe, then it is easy to show that the difference
between them is not so great and can be explained by the thermohydraulic nonequivalence of the cells and the construc-
tional features of the exit chambers of the working sections and the parts of the loops lying above them. This underscores
the importance, from the standpoint of analysis of the behavior of the reactor core during an accident and verification of
the computational codes, of correct modeling in an experiment of the axial and radial profiles of the energy release and the
constructional features of the top part of the fuel assembly and the reactor itself. The latter is especially important for very
low coolant flow rates, when the heat-transfer crisis is largely determined by the cooling of the moisture carried away by
the steam on the elements of the exist units of the fuel assemblies, the bearing plate, and the above-core space and
subsequent return of the accumulated liquid into the active part of the fuel assembly.
The RELAP5 computational code is widely used for estimating the behavior of reactors under dynamic and
accident conditions. The calculation of the critical heat flux in one of the latest versions of this code RELAP5/mod3 is
based on an interpolation of skeletal tables on the crisis of heat transfer for an 8 mm in diameter circular pipe [6] followed
by multiplication of the values obtained by the empirical correction factors which reflect various features of specific fuel
assemblies.

413
 For purposes of analysis of the possibilities of using the RELAP5/mod3 code for estimating the appearance of
critical conditions in VVt~R fuel assemblies, the computed critical heat fluxes were compared with the experimental data
for a bundle, and in order to conserve computer time, the experimentally determined values of the critical steam content
were used in the calculations performed using the code. The results of the comparison, which are presented in Fig. 7,
show that the computed values are systematically much higher (by several times) than the experimental values. A similar
conclusion was drawn in [7]. This result can be explained by taking into account the fact that the method for transferring
data from pipes to bundles has not been adequately substantiated and the tabulated data for low pressures and mass
velocities less than 500 kg/(m2"sec) are not adequate enough.

LITERATURE CITED

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mass velocities," Review F1~I-0242 (1991).
2. M. E1-Genk and D. Rao, "On the predictions of critical heat flux in rod bundles at low flow and low pressure
conditions," Heat Transfer Eng., 12, No. 4, 48-57 (1991).
3. K. Mishima, H. Nishihara, and I. Mishiyoshi, "Boiling burn out and instabilities for water flowing in a round tube
under atmospheric pressure," Intern. J. Heat and Mass Transfer, 28, No. 6, 1115-1129 (1985).
4. S. Chang, W. Baek, and T. Bae, "A study of critical heat flux for low flow of water in vertical round tubes under
low pressure," Nucl. Eng. Design, 132, No. 2, 225-237 (1991).
5. V. V. Fisenko, Compressibility Of the Coolant and Efficiency of the Operation of Circulation Loops in a Nuclear
Power Plant [in Russian], l~nergoizdat, Moscow (1987).
6. D. Groeneveld, S. Cheng, and T. Doan, "1986 AECL-UO critical heat flux look up table," Heat Transfer Eng.,
7, No. 1-2, 46-62 (1986).
7. Yu. M. Zhukov, "Possibility of using skeletal tables for pipes in the calculation of the crisis of heat transfer in
bundles of rods in water-cooled reactors," At. l~nerg., 77, No. 2, 108-111 (1994).

414