CFD simulation of steam jet-induced thermal mixing in subcooled water pool

Abstract

This study examined the IRWST thermal mixing phenomena induced by a steam jet in a subcooled water pool. Due to the limitation of the current CFD code to simulate condensation, the steam condensation region model was developed to evaluate the thermal mixing phenomena. Within this region, all the steam was condensed into water, and the steam mass and energy inputs were treated as the source. This calculation was treated using single-phase CFD methods. The benchmark calculation for a thermal mixing experiment in the water tank was performed to develop an optimized 3D evaluation methodology of the thermal-hydraulic behavior in APR1400 IRWST. Steam discharge through the sparger and condensation phenomenon was modeled with the choking flow and thermal mixing model in the quenching tank using CFX11. Three types of thermal mixing experiments, local phenomena test, thermal mixing tests in cylindrical water pool and annulus water pool, were designed to provide data representative of the behavior of the prototype for CFD simulations of the thermal-hydraulic behavior in IRWST. A comparison of the calculated and experimentally measured temperature profiles showed some disagreement particularly around the sparger. The main reason for this disagreement was caused by the difference in the test and simulating conditions at the tank wall. However, moving away from the sparger, the trends of the temperature rise became similar to that in the experiment. Despite these problems, this model is the best way of evaluating the thermal mixing phenomena caused by a steam jet in a subcooled water pool.