Modelling the flow and the two-phase science of heat inside a cross-section tube of a 'once through' vapor generator overheated with sodium

Concerning the future fast neutrons reactors, studied in the frame of the European Fast Reactor (E.F.R.) project, several innovations have been proposed particularly in the field of vapor generators. These vapor generators have the particularity to use two different exchange fluids which can react violently one with the other. The thermodynamic fluid or secondary fluid is water under high pressure (18.5 MPa) which comes under saturated in the inlet of the device, warms and vaporizes inside the nest of boiler-tubes. At the outlet, vapor is overheated. The primary fluid is a liquid metal (sodium for French reactors) which flows outside the nest of boiler-tubes in the opposite direction of the secondary fluid. Several vapor generators models have been carried out. Concerning the European Fast Reactor project, the tubes have a cross-section and are in ferritic steel. Inside the boiler-tubes, the water-vapor flow can be divided into three areas. The first one is the liquid monophasic rate. It ends by the start of the boiling which is nucleated in the shell. Downstream, the two-phase flow passes from a bubbles flow to an annular flow. The liquid is then on the form of shell film and on the form of droplets carried along by the vapor flux. The dryout of the annular film is the start of the third area where there is vapor forced convection. At the present time, there is still no thermohydraulic code in the conditions of the E.F.R. vapor generator. In order to have a reliable size tool, the members of the E.F.R. project have then decided to do a two-phase flow model and have experimented a mono tubular scale model called ''ATLAS'' which represents well the real component for size, fluids and running conditions. The aim of the present work is then, in the frame of this experimental program, to 1)qualify the heat exchange and friction laws which will be later introduced in the thermohydraulic codes of cross-sections vapor generators 2)characterize the dryout phenomenon 3)quantify the thermal disequilibrium between the phases in a vapor-droplets dispersed flow. (O.M.)