Experiment and Numerical Simulation of Bubble Behavior in Argon Gas Injection into Lead-Bismuth Pool

Abstract

In a lead-bismuth alloy (45%Pb-55%Bi) cooled direct contact boiling water fast reactor (PBWFR), steam can be produced by direct contact of feed water with primary Pb-Bi coolant in the upper core plenum, and Pb-Bi coolant can be circulated by buoyancy forces of steam bubbles. As a basic study to investigate the two-phase flow characteristics in the chimneys of PBWFR, a two-dimensional two-phase flow was simulated by injecting argon gas into Pb-Bi pool in a rectangular vessel (400mm in length, 1500mm in height), and bubble behavior were investigated experimentally. Bubble sizes, bubble rising velocities and void fractions were measured using void probes. The experimental conditions are the atmospheric pressure and the flow rate of injection Ar gas is 10, 20, and 30 NL/min. The average of measured bubble rising velocity was about 0.6 m/s. The average chord length was about 7mm. An analysis was performed by two-dimensional and two-fluid model. The experimental results were compared with the analytical results to evaluate the validity of the analytical model. Although large diameter bubbles were observed in the experiment, the drag force model of lower value performed better for simulation of the experimental result.