Nucleate boiling pressure drop in an annulus: Book 4

The application of the work described in this report is the production reactors at the Savannah River Site, and the context is nuclear reactor safety. The Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) scenario considered involves a double-ended break of a primary coolant pipe in the reactor. During a LOCA, the flow through portions of the reactor may reverse direction or be greatly reduced, depending upon the location of the break. The reduced flow rate of coolant (D{sub 2}O) through the fuel assembly channels of the reactor -- downflow in this situation -- can lead to boiling and to the potential for flow instabilities which may cause some of the fuel assembly channels to overheat and melt. That situation is to be avoided. The experimental approach is to provide a test annulus which simulates geometry, materials, and flow conditions in a Mark-22 fuel assembly (Coolant Channel 3) to the extent possible. The annulus has a full-scale geometry, and in fat uses SRL dummy hardware for the inner annulus wall in the ribbed geometry. The materials aluminum. The annulus is uniformly heated in the axial direction, but the circumferential heat flux can be varied to provide ``power tilt`` or asymmetric heating of themore » inner and outer annulus walls. The test facility uses H{sub 2}O rather than D{sub 2}O, but it includes the effects of dissolved helium gas present in the reactor. The key analysis approaches are: To compare the minima in the measured demand curves with analytical criteria, in particular the Saha-Zuber (1974) model; and to compare the pressure and temperature as a function of length in the annulus with an integral model for flow boiling in a heated channel. This document consists of data plots and summary files of temperature measurements.« less