Improvement of the subcooled boiling model for low-pressure conditions in thermal-hydraulic codes Original Research Article

The functioning of the subcooled boiling model adopted in a thermal-hydraulic computer program has been investigated in detail, for low-pressure conditions, and necessary refinements have been incorporated into the code. The investigation has been carried out in two stages; in the first stage, the performance of the interfacial heat transfer/condensation is studied. Necessary refinements to the vertical flow map for the transition from bubbly to slug flow regimes and the interpolation with the ‘umbrella’ limitation that bounded the interfacial heat transfer values are carried out. Simulations of low-pressure subcooled boiling experiments were performed with the refined code version and a reasonable agreement with the experimental void fraction data was obtained. In addition, a high-pressure experiment was also simulated with the refined code version to check if these revisions do not affect the code performance at high pressures. No significant adverse effects were observed. In the second stage of the study, the performance of the wall heat flux partitioning model adapted in the code was investigated. In particular, the effectiveness of the ‘pumping factor’ formulation in the above model and its functioning at low-pressure conditions was investigated. Different ‘pumping factor’ formulations available in the literature were implemented into the code. Simulations of low-pressure subcooled boiling experiments were performed with the refined code version and the appropriate ‘pumping factors’ to be used for low-pressure conditions were determined.