An Experimental Investigation on Heat Transfer in a Subchannel with a Porous Blockage - The Influence of Flow on Temperature Distribution inside the Porous Blockage

摘要

An experimental investigation was conducted on convective heat transfer to a local blockage in a simulated subchannel of a Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Breeder Reactor. The experiment was performed with a 4-subchannel geometry water test facility. A porous blockage is located at the center subchannel and is surrounded by three unplugged subchannels. The blockages used in this study were solid metal, a porous blockage consisting of metal spheres, and a porous blockage with plates covering the side or top faces of the blockage to intentionally prevent either the axial and/or the lateral flows through the blockage (see Fig.A-1). In the experiment, the heat flux provided by an electrical heater were set at 50(kW/m{sup}2) and 20(kW/m{sup}2) while the Reynolds number was varied from 3.5×10{sup}3 to 8.6×10{sup}3. Temperature measurements of the water were made inside/outside the blockage. Finally, velocity profiles outside the blockage were measured with a Laser Doppler Velocimeter (LDV) and an Ultrasound Velocity Profile monitor (UVP). Normalized temperature inside the blockage revealed that the influence of buoyancy was negligibly small, and that the temperature depended on the flow rate and the configurations of the blockage. Comparison of temperature and velocity profiles between the blockage types as shown in Fig.A-1, showed that both lateral and axial flow influenced the heat removal from inside the upper part of the porous blockage, as well as the heater surface contacting the blockage. Father, lateral flow had a strong influence on the peak temperature inside the blockage than axial flow. The heat transfer characteristics showed that the predominant mode of heat was not conduction, but convection via lateral flow through the blockage and axial flow through the upper region of the blockage under higher flow rate conditions (see Fig.A-2).