Numerical Simulation of Steam Jet Condensation Through a Triple Nozzle Submerged into a Subcooled Water Pool

Abstract

Submerged steam jet condensation is widely applied in many industrial fields due to its high heat and mass transfer efficiency during the process of direct contact condensation (DCC). The injection of steam into a water pool usually passes through an array of nozzles. It is important to understand the interaction between neighboring jets from different nozzles. In this paper, two thermal resistance models for DCC are implemented into the computational fluid dynamics code ANSYS Fluent through a user-defined function. The triple steam nozzle cases, in which the inlet pressure ranges from 0.1 to 0.6 MPa, were investigated to understand the interaction of nozzles and their configuration as well as their mechanisms. The distributions of temperature, velocity, volumetric fraction, and pressure fields were analyzed for different cases. Furthermore, the plumes of steam jets always attract each other toward the center of the plumes, and when the inlet pressure is over 0.3 MPa, the mixing of neighboring steam plumes will occur. In addition, the location where the peak value occurs for the parameters of steam velocity, pressure, and temperature, etc. is getting closer and closer to the center of the flow domain. In addition, the curve of the pressure along the centerline of the nozzle verified the existence of compression and expansion of steam inside the plume.