An experimental study of two-phase natural circulation in an adiabatic flow loop

An experimental investigation was conducted to study the two-phase flow aspect of the phenomena of interruption and resumption of natural circulation, two-phase flow patterns and pattern transitions in the hot legs of B and W light water reactor systems. The test facility was a scaled adiabatic loop designed in accordance with the scaling criteria developed by Kocamustafaogullari and Ishii. The diameter and the height of the hot leg were 10 cm and 5.5 m, respectively; the working fluid pair was nitrogen-water. The effects of the thermal center in the steam generators, friction loss in the cold leg, and configuration of the inlet to the hot leg on the flow conditions in the hot leg were investigated by varying the water level in a gas separator, controlling the size of opening of a friction loss control valve, and using two inlet geometries. Methods for estimating the distribution parameter and the average drift velocity are proposed so that they may be used in the application of one-dimensional drift-flux model to the analysis of the interruption and resumption of natural circulation in a similar geometry. 7 refs., 17 figs., 4 tabs