Rod Bundle Heat Transfer Facility—Steam Cooling Test Series

摘要

The Pennsylvania State University/US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Rod Bundle Heat transfer Facility (RBHT) has been reconfigured to perform a series of steady-state rod bundle steam cooling experiments. The objective of these experiments is to obtain convective heat transfer data over a range of Reynolds numbers typical of Large-Break Loss of Coolant (LBLOCA) accident conditions which can be used as a basis for determining single phase spacer grid heat transfer effects. The experiments will also serve as a basis to evaluate future steam cooling with droplet injection dispersed flow film boiling experiments. The re-configured RBHT facility is shown in Figure 1 in which a 0.83 kg/sec saturated steam boiler was attached to the lower plenum injection line of the rod bundle. Saturated steam was injected at pressures slightly above the desired bundle pressure so as to have superheated steam entering the test section lower plenum. A minimum layer of water covered the heater rod o-ring seals in the lower plenum to prevent steam leakage past the seals. The condensate that was initially generated as the bundle was preheated was drained to a very low level, below the heated length so as to prevent any steam sweep-up of the condensate into the bundle.