CFD prediction of droplet deposition in steam-water annular flow with flow obstacle effects

Abstract

Recent model development on dryout prediction relies on the annular flow modeling, with three fields of gas, droplets and liquid film accounted for. Therefore one unified computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for annular flow based on Lagrangian particle tracking approach was developed for dryout applications. On the other hand, it is well acknowledged that dryout performance could be improved if flow obstacles are placed in a flow channel. Therefore, to study and predict the dryout, the governing phenomena of droplet deposition and entrainment in annular flow with and without obstacles need to be investigated. The current work tested the CFD model against experimental data from a steam-water flow experiment. Both data with and without obstacles were employed to test the model capability on deposition calculation. The calculated deposition results without obstacles agree reasonably well with both the experimental data and the existing empirical correlations. In case of the flow with obstacles, the calculations also show reasonably good agreement with the experimental data. The current work laid a basis for further work on annular flow model development with dryout capabilities.