Subcooled Flow Boiling Experiment and Simulation for a Virtual Reactor

Abstract

Subcooled flow boiling experiments and numerical simulations using a Lattice Boltzmann model will be performed at City College of New York as part of the DOE Nuclear HUB project, Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors (CASL). The experiments being performed include pool boiling from a platinum wire, subcooled flow boiling in a vertical tube and single air bubble injection into a turbulent water stream. Preliminary experiments have been performed to measure the bubble size, shape and motion in an adiabatic experiment involving air bubble injection into water flowing in a vertical annulus, as well as PIV measurements of liquid flow field in a subcooled flow boiling experiment. An advanced thermal Finite Element Lattice Boltzmann Model is being developed to predict the pool and flow boiling experiments. After the validation of the code, improved constitutive relations for subcooled flow boiling will be developed for use in 3-D CFD models. The present work is expected to contribute to the development of a multi-scale, multi-physics model of a PWR in the CASL project.