Abstract
Abstract The dynamics of rising bubbles in a liquid sodium pool plays a significant role in the estimation of the radiological source term during anticipated transients and normal operation of a fast reactor. Sodium is chemically reactive with air and water. Therefore, carrying out experiments using sodium on a reactor scale level requires extra precautions. We report an in-house experimental technique to depict the bubble dynamics along with numerical support to establish similarity behavior between water and liquid sodium, to reduce the number of experiments in sodium systems for in-depth knowledge of bubble dynamics in the case of the fast breeder reactor. In the present work, 3-D bubble dynamics is studied in the OpenFOAM platform and the validated numerical model is used to study bubble dynamics in sodium to establish similitude between the water and sodium systems. The bubble aspect ratio of 0.9 cm diameter bubbles in the sodium system is found to be in close agreement with that of 0.5 cm bubbles in the water system. Experimental and numerical findings suggest similarity of the aspect ratio between water and scaled-up sodium systems. The similarity criteria established between water and sodium are found to be very useful in conducting water-based experiments to study bubble dynamics in sodium systems.
Highlights
Bubble movements can be originated during the entrainment of cover gas, fission gases or sodium vapor in a liquid sodium pool during anticipated transients of a fast breeder reactor (Henry et al, 1971)
A thorough understanding of bubble dynamics in liquid sodium has its importance in safety-related studies in the field of fast reactors
We propose unique similarity criteria to use water as a working fluid for understanding bubble dynamics in liquid sodium systems by judiciously combining numerical and experimental studies for the first time
Summary
Bubble movements can be originated during the entrainment of cover gas, fission gases or sodium vapor in a liquid sodium pool during anticipated transients of a fast breeder reactor (Henry et al, 1971). The rising bubble dynamics play a vital role in the stable operation of reactors and in radiological source term estimation during anticipated transients. The characteristics of bubbles can be better predicted from gas release tests rather than tests using single bubbles (Dickinson and Nunamaker, 1975). The understanding of single bubble rise dynamics is of major importance towards understanding complex bubbly flows involved in the gas release tests. It is difficult to study the dynamics in sodium systems, due to issues associated with the handling of liquid sodium and its opaque nature. It is difficult to study the dynamics in sodium systems, due to issues associated with the handling of liquid sodium and its opaque nature. Wang (2015) carried out a numerical simulation on 2-D bubble dynamics and emphasized the need for experimental studies using suitable simulated studies
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