Numerical Simulation of Flow Boiling in Small Channel of Plate OTSG

Abstract

The plate OTSG (once-through steam generator) with channel diameter of 1-3 mm has high volume-power ratio and powerful resistance to high temperature and high pressure. It can well satisfy the needs of high heat transfer performance and good security of integrated pressure vessel in nuclear power. Heat transfer characteristics of flow boiling in the channel have aroused increasing concerns from scholars in this field. In this paper, based on the experimental results achieved by the researcher in our team, the drift flux model is applied to simulate the flow boiling heat transfer coefficients in the rectangular channel with equivalent diameter of 1.7 mm to further explore the flow boiling mechanism in the channel. The drift velocities and the distribution parameters of drift flux model are obtained by the empirical correlations of the horizontal flow. The simulation boundary conditions comply to the experimental conditions, the simulation resolutions are obtained by using STAR-CCM+. The simulation results indicate that the heat transfer coefficients trends along the flow direction are consistent with the trends of the experimental data. The drift velocities and the distribution parameters have little effect on the heat transfer coefficients of the horizontal small channel. When the drift velocity is 0 and the distribution parameter is 1, compared with the experimental data, the heat transfer coefficients in the single-phase liquid convective heat transfer region of the flow at high pressure are well higher, while those in the region that from bobble flow to the slug flow of the flow increase, even though they are still lower in annular flow region. The error between the predicted and the experimental is from −50 to +50%. Similarly, the model predicted heat transfer coefficients during subcooled flow boiling at low pressure are generally lower than experimental data. And the error between the predicted and the experimental is from −60 to +10%.