Experimental and Calculated Investigation of a Natural Circulation Loop’s Thermal-Hydraulic Characteristics

The results from experimental investigation into hydrodynamics and heat transfer in a two-phase natural circulation loop (NCL) under atmospheric pressure are presented. The experiments were carried out for liquids having essentially different properties: water, ethanol, and perfluorohexane C₆F₁₄ (the product trademark is FC-72). The circulation velocity in the NCL is not known in advance but is a complex function of the specified parameters (heat flux and liquid temperature at the heated section inlet) and of the two-phase flow internal characteristics. The liquid temperatures at the heated section inlet, the wall temperature over the section height, and also the circulation velocity were measured in the experiments at a specified heat flux; in addition, the two-phase flow at the loop riser leg outlet was filmed on video. The experiments and analysis have shown that flow hydrodynamic instability (circulation velocity pulsations) is really unavoidable in a two-phase NCL. Hydrodynamic instability with a high circulation velocity amplitude and with the occurrence of backward flows is typical for regimes involving significant liquid subcooling values at the heated section inlet and for NCLs containing an extended part with single-phase convection. This instability, which is characteristic for experiments with water, is due to the displacement of the boiling incipience section over the section height; the instability also persists at small subcooling values but with a low pulsation amplitude. Under the developed saturated liquid nucleate boiling conditions (at high heat flux values), the circulation velocity and wall temperature pulsations have small amplitudes, and the flow can be regarded as stable. In the experiments with perfluorohexane, the smallest wall temperature and circulation velocity pulsations were pointed out, which is attributed to a relatively high value of reduced pressure. In the experiments with ethanol, instability occurs in the developed nucleate boiling region (q > 35 kW/m²); this instability is caused by periodically alternating two-phase flow structure (regime). A procedure for calculating a low-pressure NCL is developed, in which the two-phase flow’s local parameters (void fraction, phase velocities, and pressure) are calculated according to a modified homogeneous model (taking into account the phase distribution factor and phases slip) and a dispersed-annular flow model taking into account the droplet entrainment and deposition phenomena. A comparison of the NCL calculation results with the experimental data obtained for three different liquids has shown that they are in good agreement with each other.