Spargers are mutli-hole injection pipes used in Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) and Advanced Pressurized (AP) reactors to condense steam in large water pools. A steam injection induces heat, momentum and mass sources that depend on the steam injection conditions and can result in thermal stratification or mixing of the pool. Thermal stratification reduces the steam condensation capacity of the pool, increases the pool surface temperature and thus the containment pressure. Development of models with predictive capabilities requires the understanding of basic phenomena that govern the behavior of the complex multi-scale system. The goals of this work are (i) to analyze and interpret the experiments on steam injection into a pool through spargers performed in the large-scale facilities of PPOOLEX and PANDA, and (ii) to discuss possible modelling approaches for the observed phenomena. A scaling approach was developed to address the most important physical phenomena and regimes relevant to prototypic plant conditions. The focus of the tests was on the low steam mass flux and oscillatory bubble condensation regimes, which are expected during a long-term steam injection transient, e.g. in the case of a Station Black Out (SBO). Exploratory tests were also done for chugging and stable jet conditions. The results showed a similar behavior in PPOOLEX and PANDA in terms of jet induced by steam condensation, pool stratification, and development of hot layer and erosion of the cold one. A correlation using the Richardson number is proposed to model the erosion rate of the cold layer as a function of the pool dimensions and steam injection conditions.
Spargers are multi-hole injection pipes used in Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) and Generation III/III+ Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR) to condense steam in large water pools. During the steam injection, high pool surface temperatures induced by thermal stratification can lead to higher containment pressures compared with completely mixed pool conditions, the former posing a threat for plant safety. The Effective Heat Source (EHS) and Effective Momentum Source (EMS) models were previously developed and validated for the modelling of a steam injection through blowdown pipes. The goal of this paper is to extend the EHS/EMS model capabilities towards steam injection through multi-hole spargers. The models are implemented in ANSYS Fluent 17.0 Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code and calibrated against the spargers experiments performed in the PPOOLEX and PANDA facilities, analysed by the authors in [1] (Gallego-Marcos, I., et al., 2018). CFD modelling guidelines are established for the adequate simulation of the pool behaviour. A new correlation is proposed to model the turbulent production and dissipation caused by buoyancy. Sensitivity studies addressing the effect of different assumptions on the effective momentum magnitude, profile, angle and turbulence are presented. Calibration of the effective momentum showed an inverse proportionality to the sub-cooling. Differences between the effective momentum calibrated for PPOOLEX and PANDA are discussed. Analysis of the calculated flow above the cold stratified layer showed that the erosion of the layer is induced by the action of turbulence rather than mean shear flow.
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