Evaporation and condensation heat transfer with a noncondensable gas present

Abstract

To evaluate the system pressure of an external water wall type containment vessel, which is one of the passive systems for containment cooling, the evaporation and condensation behavior under a noncondensable gas presence has been experimentally examined. In the system, steam evaporated from the suppression pool surface into the wetwell, filled with noncondensable gas, and condensed on the containment vessel wall. The system pressure was the sum of the noncondensable gas pressure and saturated steam pressure in the wetwell. The wetwell temperature was, however, lower than the supression pool temperature and depended on the thermal resistance on the suppression pool surface. The evaporation and condensation heat transfer coefficients in the presence of air as noncondensable gas were measured and expressed by functions of steam/air mass ratio. The evaporation heat transfer coefficients were one order higher than the condensation heat transfer coefficients because the local noncondensable gas pressure was much lower on the evaporating pool surface than on the condensing liquid surface. Using logal properties of the heat transfer surfaces, there was a similar trend between evaporation and condensation even with a noncondensable gas present.