Separate effects tests for gothic condensation and evaporative heat transfer models Original Research Article

The gothic computer program, under development at NAI for EPRI, is a general purpose thermal hydraulics computer program for design, licensing, safety and operating analysis of nuclear containments and other confinement buildings. The code solves a nine-equation model for three-dimensional multiphase flow with separate mass, momentum and energy equations for vapor, liquid and drop phases. The vapor phase can be a gas mixture of steam and non-condensing gases. The phase balance equations are coupled by mechanistic and empirical models for interface mass, energy and momentum transfer that cover the entire flow regime from bubbly flow to film-drop flow. A variety of heat transfer correlations are available to model the fluid coupling to active and passive solid conductors. This paper focuses on the application of gothic to two separate effects tests: condensation heat transfer on a vertical flat plate with varying bulk velocity, steam concentration and temperature, and evaporative heat transfer from a hot pool to a dry (superheated) atmosphere. Comparisons with experimental data are included for both tests. Results show the validity of two condensation heat transfer correlations as incorporated into GOTHIC and the interfacial heat and mass transfer models for the range of the experimental test conditions. Comparisons are also made for lumped vs. multidimensional modeling for buoyancy-controlled flow with evaporative heat transfer.