The use of seawater as an alternative emergency coolant in a nuclear power plant presents great potential to enhance the nuclear safety. The present study investigates the dynamic instabilities during the startup experiments of a natural circulation loop with seawater through synchronization of two-phase flow visualization and measurements of transient fluid flow parameters. The results reveal that in seawater the pressure drop oscillations (PDO) with nature of low-frequency pulse-type loop flow occurs at the modified heat flux of 531.56–654.80 kW/m2. On the other hand, the density wave oscillations (DWO) characterized by high-frequency oscillatory flow prevails at higher modified heat flux of 654.80–1844.46 kW/m2. For the loop with seawater, the flow patterns in the riser may evolve from dispersed bubbly flow, foam flow, foam and short slug flow due to the flashing effects, and foam and long slug flow periodically. The image analysis reveals that the foam fraction may decline from 75% to 52.2%, while the flow pattern transforms from the stage II (foam and cape bubbly flow) to III (foam and long slug flow). On the other hand, the flow pattern may evolve from bubbly flow, cap bubbly flow, turbulent slug flow, and long slug flow in de-ionized water. For DWO, the oscillatory frequency is found to be inlet temperature dependent. Interestingly, both fluids demonstrate identical frequencies of 0.06 Hz, 0.14 Hz, and 0.09 Hz, respectively, corresponding to the inlet temperature range of 40–52 °C, 52–65 °C, and 65–75 °C, despite significantly different evolution of two-phase flow patterns. Indeed, the density wave travels at the same speed through the loop operating at the same power for both seawater and de-ionized water, as the buoyancy force is the primary driving force for the present study. These findings contribute significantly to the better understanding of related industrial processes using seawater as the working fluid.
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