Capacitive Thin Film Thickness Probes for Two-Phase Flow in Porous Beds

摘要

Severe accidents in nuclear reactor systems can lead to a debris bed scenario where modeling of two-phase flow in a porous media is required, just as it is with packed bed reactors which are used in a wide variety of fields, from life-support systems on the International Space Station (ISS) to hydrogenation of sour crude oils for petroleum products. In order to understand the phenomena of these porous media systems a detailed understanding of the two-phase flow structure is required. Of great importance in the understanding of these structures is knowledge of the liquid film thickness on the packing and wetting characteristics of the bed. Film thickness in pipe flow has been measured using parallel-wire probes, however parallel wire probes are less accurate at film thicknesses of less than 1.5-2mm. A flushed wire thin film thickness probe was developed that can accurately measure film thickness on spherical packing.