Experimental and Numerical Investigation of a Single-Phase Square Natural Circulation Loop

Abstract

Experimental and numerical analyses are carried out for a natural circulation loop (NCL) under low and moderate heater power. The effect of ambient temperature variation on the loop thermal behavior has been taken into account in present study. The effect of liquid inertia has a role in the initial transience, as revealed by the numerical and experimental observations. The steady-state results from the present analyses are validated with the reported dimensionless results for NCL. The experimental steady-state results are in fair agreement with the developed lumped numerical models. At moderate power, the numerical and experimental results indicate periodic oscillations.