Investigation of subcooled boiling wall closures at high pressure using a two-phase CFD code

Abstract

This study validates the applicability of the CUPID code for simulating subcooled wall boiling under high-pressure conditions against number of DEBORA tests. In addition, a new numerical technique in which the interfacial momentum non-drag forces are calculated at the cell faces rather than the center is presented. This method reduced the numerical instability often triggered by calculating these terms at the cell center. Simulation results showed good agreement against the experimental data except for the bubble sizes in the bulk. Thus, a new model to calculate the Sauter mean diameter is proposed. Next, the effect of the relationship between the bubble departure diameter (Ddep) and the nucleation site density (N) on the performance of the Wall Heat Flux Partitioning (WHFP) model is investigated. Three correlations for Ddep and two for N are grouped into six combinations. Results by the different combinations show that despite the significant difference in the calculated Ddep, most combinations reasonably predict vapor distribution and liquid temperature. Analysis of the axial propagations of wall boiling parameters shows that the N term stabilizes the inconsistences in Ddep values by following a behavior reflective of Ddep to keep the total energy balance. Moreover, ratio of the heat flux components vary widely along the flow depending on the combinations. These results suggest that separate validation of Ddep correlations may be insufficient since its performance relies on the accompanying N correlations.