Prediction of the critical heat flux for saturated upward flow boiling water in vertical narrow rectangular channels

Abstract

A study, on the theoretical method to predict the critical heat flux (CHF) of saturated upward flow boiling water in vertical narrow rectangular channels, has been conducted. For the assessment of this CHF prediction method, 608 experimental data were selected from the previous researches, in which the heated sections were uniformly heated from both wide surfaces under the high pressure condition over 41bar.For this purpose, representative previous liquid film dryout (LFD) models for circular channels were reviewed by using 6058 points from the KAIST CHF data bank. This shows that it is reasonable to define the initial condition of quality and entrainment fraction at onset of annular flow (OAF) as the transition to annular flow regime and the equilibrium value, respectively, and the prediction error of the LFD model is dependent on the accuracy of the constitutive equations of droplet deposition and entrainment. In the modified Levy model, the CHF data are predicted with standard deviation (SD) of 14.0% and root mean square error (RMSE) of 14.1%. Meanwhile, in the present LFD model, which is based on the constitutive equations developed by Okawa et al., the entire data are calculated with SD of 17.1% and RMSE of 17.3%. Because of its qualitative prediction trend and universal calculation convergence, the present model was finally selected as the best LFD model to predict the CHF for narrow rectangular channels.For the assessment of the present LFD model for narrow rectangular channels, effective 284 data were selected. By using the present LFD model, these data are predicted with RMSE of 22.9% with the dryout criterion of zero-liquid film flow, but RMSE of 18.7% with rivulet formation model. This shows that the prediction error of the present LFD model for narrow rectangular channels is similar with that for circular channels.