Improvement of the MARS subcooled boiling model for a vertical upward flow

Abstract

In the thermal-hydraulic system codes, such as MARS and RELAP5/MOD3, the Savannah River Laboratory (SRL) model has been adopted as a subcooled boiling model. It, however, has been shown that the SRL model cannot take into account appropriately the effects of inlet liquid velocity and hydraulic diameter on axial void fraction development. To overcome the problems, Ha et al. (2018) proposed a modified SRL model, which is applicable to low-pressure and low-Pe conditions (P < 9.83 bar and Pe ≤ 70,000) only. In this work, the authors extended the modified SRL model by proposing a new net vapor generation (NVG) model and a wall evaporation model so that the new subcooled boiling model can cover a wide range of thermal-hydraulic conditions with pressures ranging from 1.1 to 69 bar, heat fluxes of 97–1186 kW/m2, Pe of 3600 to 329,000, and hydraulic diameters of 5–25.5 mm. The new model was implemented in the MARS code and has been assessed using various subcooled boiling experimental data. The results of the new model showed better agreements with measured void fraction data, especially at low-pressure conditions.