BUBBLE GROWTH, TRANSPORT, AND COLLAPSE IN SUBCOOLED FLOW BOILING

摘要

CFD analysis of the growth, transport, and condensation of a single bubble in turbulent subcooled flow boiling was performed using the open-source software, OpenFOAM. 3-D computation was carried out with volume-of-fluid (VOF) interface tracking method and large eddy simulation (LES) turbulence model, coupled with adaptive mesh refinement (AMR). The numerical model was validated with experimental result in the literature. Bubble behavior was then studied by varying the system pressure, subcooling temperature, contact angle, wall heat flux, and bulk velocity. The pressure range covers the operating conditions of boiling water reactors (BWR) and pressurized water reactors (PWR). Effects of these variations on the bubble growth and condensation, lift-off time, and dynamics are presented.