Experimental investigation of steam condensation in a horizontal tube in the presence of noncondensable gas
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A horizontal heat exchanger design is being developed for the Passive Containment Cooling System (PCCS) of future light water reactors. The horizontal heat exchanger would be part of the PCCS that is called upon following a hypothesized severe accident or Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA). In the current research, a countercurrent double pipe heat exchanger is designed to mechanistically study the heat transfer and fluid flow phenomena in the heat exchanger tube (31.75 mm O.D., 3.0 m long). The degradation effect of noncondensable gas was also studied. A test matrix of 31 test conditions was covered. The steam flow rate ranged from 11.5-46 g/s. The inlet air volumetric fraction was 1%-20%. The test section inlet total pressure range was from 0.1 MPa to 0.4 MPa. 14 temperature measurement cross sections were arranged along the heat transfer section with 7 thermocouples on each cross section to acquire the local heat transfer data and address the asymmetrical heat transfer characteristics around the periphery of the condenser tube. Instead of calculating the local heat flux from the coolant temperature profile along the test section, the temperature gradient through the condenser tube wall was measured locally, which avoids the inaccuracy caused by the complex coolant mixing. Based on the experiment data, the condensation heat transfer coefficients on the top and bottom of the tube were calculated separately. This provides unique and essential fundamental data to understand and model the condensation process.
